Project Background

Cornerstone Information Systems® is a leading travel technology provider with more than 600 clients operating globally, including travel management companies, online travel agencies, corporate travel departments, and global distribution systems.

The 4site™ platform, built in cooperation with AltexSoft, aims at automating travel planning and trip management. It offers powerful business intelligence features, providing the users with a complete control over their journeys, and 24/7 support to handle disruptions.

Problem

The estimated cost of travel disruptions is $60 billion per year. With the number of airline passengers expected to reach 7.3 billion by 2034, the costs of disrupted flights will skyrocket.

Cornerstone was looking for a simple yet efficient solution for proactive airline disruption management, able to save billions of dollars for travel providers and travelers globally.

Solution

Travel agent

Advanced web dashboard – a comprehensive tool for corporate travel managers. The dashboard allows the travel manager to track the status of the corporate traveler and proactively react in case of disruption.

Traveler

Multitenant mobile application providing corporate travelers with a direct access to travel-related information on the go and get timely assistance from travel managers in case of disruption.

The Process

Having spent about a year working on the idea of the 4site tool and drafting the basics, the company addressed AltexSoft with a request to handle core aspects of product development, including business analysis, UI/UX consulting, and engineering.

In order to achieve maximum performance efficiency in business analysis, solution architecture and prototyping, a hybrid approach to dedicated team cooperation model has been chosen. As a result, the part of our team traveled to the client’s business location in order to join forces with the client’s in-house team and jumpstart the project.

STEP 1: Requirements specification

Goal: Elaborate and finalize the main user personas for the future product taking into account the specifics of corporate travel industry and disruption management business.

Process: AltexSoft team of project manager, UX designer/business analyst and software engineers has spent three weeks at the client’s office for a deep dive into the industry and product specifics with the Cornerstone product team.

Deliverables: Valuable insights about the industry and client’s business, profound user personas analysis, clear vision of the product goals, for every persona.

STEP 2: Mapping the hierarchy of roles and entities

Goal: Define and visualize the inner information architecture of the product, structure it according to the roles and assigned functionality.

Process: Documenting the features and relations between the product modules, we were able to break down the scope of the project into smaller pieces and identify implementation priorities, from level 1 (critical) issues to level 7 (nice to have add-ons).

STEP 3: Identifying user journeys and testing the concept

Goal: Propose the navigation flow, outline user journeys.

Process: The team was able to map out possible user journeys for the future product, including custom variations of the app flow for every type of user.

Deliverables: Finalized product concept and navigation.

STEP 4: Prototyping, identifying the MVP

Goal: Lay the groundwork for product design

Process: We analyzed and fine-tuned initial prototypes, provided by the client, to match the product concept. Based on updated prototypes, the team created the basic wireframes and then converted them into clickable, interactive prototypes.

Deliverables: Interactive product prototypes (80+ web app screens), finalized specifications and outlined MVP scope.

STEP 5: Design

Goal: Develop the visual image of the product and style guide.

Process: AltexSoft UX/UI team has developed UI design for the web app (based on the updated prototypes) and mobile app (created from the ground up). The most important features required extremely elaborate implementation, which lead us to creating numerous design concepts.

Deliverables: Complete user interface design for web and mobile app, product style guide.

4site Mobile App

Timeline
My trips
Assistance

4site Web Dashboard

Traveler details - Timeline
Active travelers
Traveler details - Reservations
Flight Status

STEP 6: Documenting the functional specifications

Goal: Outline the requirements and functionality of the future product.

Process: Specification writing was running in parallel with all previous steps. The business analyst compiled all related functional requirements for every new screen or feature added by the team. Completed parts on the document were regularly submitted for client review and updated as necessary.

Deliverables: Elaborated functional specifications document for both web and mobile app – total 260+ pages.

STEP 7: Ongoing design support

Goal: Provide the engineering team with the required design elements and support the product’s future development.

Process: In the process of product implementation minor tweaks of UI elements or features were needed, which resulted in making the software engineering process more efficient. Hence, our designers actively contributed to the product development process until the project completion.

Deliverables: Full-fledged product, and its ongoing improvement through added features design.

Project Outcomes

After the UX/UI design process was completed, our team proceeded with the product engineering. Both mobile application and web dashboard were developed in full accordance with the client’s requirements. The product is currently a part of Cornerstone Information Systems portfolio of travel management software.

Services provided within the project framework: Travel Technology Practice.

Mat Orrego

Mat Orrego,Co-Founder and CEO, Cornerstone Information Systems

I’ve had the pleasure of working with AltexSoft on various projects including both web and mobile applications development. They brought together great people, including excellent project and account management leadership. AltexSoft technical talent was fantastic and worked well with our scrum teams and helped us to deliver consistent results. They were always helpful and accommodating to our schedules and deadlines. I highly recommend AltexSoft for your next software development engagement.

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