BowlNow Reservation App, Website, and Marketing

An all-in-one bowling software that maximises revenue and simplifies operations for bowling proprietors.

Client
BowlNow

Year
2023-Present

Project Type
Product Design, Marketing

Role
Lead Product Designer and Creative Director

Overview

Bowling Industries Leading All-In-One Bowling Software that Maximises Revenue and Simplifies Operations

As the product designer and creative director for the BowlNow project, I played a pivotal role in developing an intuitive reservations app and leading the creative direction for its marketing campaign and landing page. My focus for the BowlNow app was to reduce user friction and pain points: to streamline bowling center operations, simplify staff adoption, increase revenue through delivering ROI through a seamless digital experience.

The challenges BowlNow faced required a design-forward approach that balanced functional simplicity with impactful messaging:

  1. Inefficient Workflows: Staff spent hours managing bookings, payments, and schedules manually. The app needed to replace these time-consuming tasks with automation while staying easy to learn.

    Design Focus: Created a user flow that mirrored natural staff processes, ensuring minimal disruption to their routines.

  2. Technology Resistance: Staff often felt overwhelmed by complex software, leading to slow adoption rates. A welcoming, intuitive interface was critical to overcome this barrier.

    Design Focus: Prioritized simplicity by designing a clean, clutter-free interface with helpful tooltips and step-by-step onboarding.

  3. Fragmented Communication: Bowling centers lacked systems to unify operations, leading to errors and inefficiencies. The app needed to act as a single source of truth.

    Design Focus: Integrated features like real-time updates, centralized dashboards, and AI Chatbots for seamless and rapid communication between staff and management.

  4. Lack of Transparency Around ROI: Bowling center owners were skeptical about investing in new tools without clear financial benefits. The app had to make ROI tangible.

    Future Design Focus: Included analytics dashboards to track savings and revenue growth, reinforcing the value proposition in measurable terms.

These challenges guided every aspect of the design process, ensuring the final product addressed real user needs while aligning with BowlNow’s business objectives.

Crafting the BowlNow Reservations App and Features

The focus was to transform an engineer-built app into a seamless, intuitive solution that elevates the user experience and aligns with the operational needs of bowling centers. By applying user research, design thinking, and industry-specific insights, I’m retroactively optimizing the app to simplify complex workflows, empower staff, and create a more cohesive and efficient customer experience. This process bridges the gap between functionality and usability, ensuring the app not only works but works beautifully for its users

Key Contributions

    • Conducted research to map out typical staff workflows, identifying inefficiencies and opportunities for automation.

    • Designed a streamlined booking process that minimized clicks and reduced manual input, enabling staff to complete tasks faster.

    • Created an intuitive interface with clear navigation and contextual tooltips, ensuring new staff could use the app confidently within minutes.

    • Integrated Payments: Designed seamless payment processing, reducing checkout times and minimizing errors.

    • Real-Time Updates: Designed features for instant communication between staff, ensuring accurate, up-to-date information on reservations.

    • AI Chatbots: working with engineering on the UI of the Ai chatbots integrated into the platform.

    • Developed a flexible design system to support future features and customizations for bowling centers of different sizes.

    • Incorporated feedback loops to continuously improve the app based on user insights.

BowlNow Website

For the marketing website, my goal was to create a visually engaging, user-friendly platform that communicated BowlNow’s value proposition clearly while driving conversions. I focused on blending functional design with compelling storytelling to resonate with the target audience—bowling center owners and managers.

By combining thoughtful design with strategic storytelling, the marketing website became a powerful tool for BowlNow to connect with its audience, generate leads, and communicate its mission effectively.

Key Contributions

    • Organized content into a logical flow that guided users through the benefits of the software, speaking to the pain points our target audience is experiencing, and how this software is going to make real impact on their business.

    • Prioritized a user-centric approach to ensure visitors could quickly understand why BowlNow was the best choice for their business.

    • Highlighted the software’s core benefits: automation, ease of use, and ROI.

    • Designed dedicated sections to address common pain points, like onboarding complexity and operational inefficiencies.

    • Delivered a mobile-first design that ensured seamless usability across all devices, from desktop to smartphones.

    • Leveraged vibrant visuals, clean layouts, and micro-interactions to create a polished, professional look that reflected BowlNow’s innovation.

Marketing Campaign

As the creative director for the “Up to 20% Off Yearly Subscriptions” campaign, I crafted messaging and designs that emphasized urgency, value, and ease of adoption to drive conversions.

The campaign targeted bowling center owners and managers, highlighting the long-term savings and operational benefits of committing to BowlNow’s software, not only the deep discounts when getting an annual subscription.

Campaign Concept and Messaging

  • Developed a core message that framed the discount as a smart investment as well as the smart savings.

  • Leveraged language that spoke to pain points, focusing on the financial and operational ROI of a yearly subscription.

Creative Assets

  • Designed eye-catching landing page, visuals for emails and flyers, emphasizing the 20% savings with clear, bold typography and vibrant color accents.

Landing Page Designs

  • Optimized a dedicated campaign landing page with a streamlined user flow that highlighted the offer, explained the benefits of a yearly subscription, and included a clear call to action.

  • Added trust-building elements, such as testimonials and ROI calculators, to reinforce value and encourage sign-ups.