case study
case study
case study
product design | one key
OVERVIEW
OVERVIEW
project summary
I led the team responsible for product design and strategy for all email communication products supporting Expedia Group’s (EG) cross-brand loyalty program, One Key. This initiative unified rewards across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo, encouraging users to book their entire travel journey within the EG ecosystem. By transforming siloed brand experiences into a cohesive platform, the program aimed to increase cross-brand engagement, build long-term loyalty, and position EG as a comprehensive travel solution. Seamless, consistent communication across all brands was essential to achieving these goals.
In addition to leading the effort, I contributed directly to the hands-on design and development of a scalable email communication product that now serves all 168M+ One Key members. I also helped shape EG’s broader email communication framework as lead product designer. My work established the design foundations for all loyalty program messaging, ensuring a unified user experience across brands and throughout the entire customer journey.
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• Project Overview
• contributions
• role overview
• key insights
key contributions
As Product Director, I led the creation of the foundational design system for One Key’s loyalty email communications, enabling consistency and scalability across Expedia Group’s portfolio of brands. I defined and implemented core UX/UI patterns that became the standard for all loyalty messaging, supporting a seamless experience for over 168M+ users.
I drove alignment across key stakeholders—including Principal Product, Design Systems, and Brand teams—to successfully launch multiple One Key communication suites and campaigns. These efforts ensured technical feasibility, brand consistency, and support for rebranding initiatives while driving increased user engagement.
In addition to my leadership role, I served as a development and data resource—building and testing modular email components, validating personalization logic, and using performance data to inform design and messaging decisions. I also established and maintained a centralized design system and resource library with reusable components, collaborating cross-functionally to scale it effectively while significantly reducing design-to-development time and improving delivery efficiency.
challenges and goal
Expedia Group’s flagship brands—Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo—were historically operated as independent entities, with limited user awareness of their shared ownership. To shift toward a more unified and centralized business model, EG launched a company-wide rebrand and introduced a cross-brand loyalty program designed to position the company as a comprehensive travel platform.
This initiative consolidated the separate Expedia and Hotels.com rewards programs into a single, unified offering—One Key—extending loyalty benefits to Vrbo users for the first time. The goal was to drive cross-brand engagement by enabling members to earn and redeem rewards across all three platforms. One Key aimed to boost user retention and brand affinity by offering a seamless, rewarding experience that spanned the entire travel journey. By allowing users to accrue benefits across brands, the program created new opportunities for upsells, reactivation, and long-term loyalty.
To support this, the team set out to design a scalable, cross-brand email communication system that would drive program awareness, increase adoption, and encourage repeat bookings. With email as a primary engagement channel, this system was critical for delivering personalized, brand-aligned experiences that supported One Key’s business goals.
Main Brands, Pre-One Key
users
The One Key communication product was designed to serve both internal and external audiences by establishing a comprehensive email communication system—comprised of an internal design system and an external user-facing experience.
Internal (backend) users included EG employees across functions—UX and brand designers, product managers, engineers, production teams, data analysts, and loyalty stakeholders—who relied on the system for consistency, scalability, and operational efficiency.
External (frontend) users were EG travelers receiving and interacting with One Key communications across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo. For them, the system delivered a unified, brand-consistent experience that enhanced engagement, reinforced loyalty, and reflected the integrated value of the EG ecosystem.
Scope
Initial Scope: Create a One Key-specific email product and design system (within the existing company-wide email design system and deployment platform), standardizing email communications across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo.
Challenge: Project complexity was significantly underestimated. At the time we were asked to create the email communication product, One Key's overall product design wasn't completed. Work was happening across siloed teams, and pertinent design system components and branding aspects weren't finalized, creating added levels of project intricacies.
constraints
Developing scalable solutions for integration into a product still undergoing active development
Navigating an accelerated timeline with evolving requirements
Managing challenges from a concurrent company-wide rebrand and knowledge gaps due to ongoing organizational restructuring
Addressing technical constraints of the deployment platform and limitations in available user data
APPROACH
APPROACH
Strategic Review of Program Architecture & Brand Evolution
As Product Director, I played a key role in the strategic review of the One Key program architecture, ensuring its alignment and integration across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo amid their ongoing rebranding efforts. Leveraging systems thinking, I analyzed how the program’s components would interact within each brand’s evolving framework while addressing the needs of diverse user segments across the loyalty ecosystem.
I led cross-functional collaboration with design, brand, legal, loyalty, and technical teams to validate and refine product specifications, guaranteeing seamless execution across all customer journey touchpoints. The technical scope was comprehensive, covering tiered loyalty structures, points accrual and redemption mechanics, benefit qualifications, and expiration policies—all developed in close adherence to updated branding guidelines and design system standards.
A significant challenge was managing the One Key product’s active, pre-launch development in parallel with our strategic work. This required agile handling of rapidly evolving elements—from granular design system details such as colors and icons to major program features including tier definitions, claims processes, and messaging. The project’s complexity was further heightened by strong senior leadership involvement following EG’s company reorganization, necessitating careful stakeholder engagement and communication throughout the process.
Main Brands, Pre-One Key
Develop Product Framework & Build
As Product Director, I led the development of a loyalty-specific email design system framework that clearly communicated One Key program features while aligning with cross-functional team requirements.
I spearheaded the integration of a comprehensive loyalty design system within the existing company-wide design framework, standardizing the implementation of loyalty features. This approach significantly reduced development time and ensured consistent brand expression across all communications.
I designed flexible, scalable frameworks capable of supporting complex, data-driven communications—including tiered loyalty levels, points accrual, and benefit management—across multiple user touchpoints.
Throughout this phase, I managed evolving product requirements and diverse stakeholder priorities, balancing agility with the need to maintain design system integrity and brand cohesion.
Ultimately, I established robust, scalable design foundations that supported ongoing program growth and enabled the seamless addition of new features in future iterations.
INTEGRATION
I led the integration of the One Key design system into existing product flows through iterative wireframes and high-fidelity mockups, ensuring seamless alignment between program messaging and platform UX. This strategic approach emphasized clear communication of member benefits and incentives, reinforcing program value and supporting user engagement and adoption goals.
By prioritizing clarity, consistency, and flexibility, the resulting design framework successfully showcased One Key’s value propositions while maintaining brand alignment across all touchpoints. This phase was critical in translating complex loyalty mechanics into intuitive, user-friendly experiences that educated customers and drove sustained interaction with the program.
Communication Product
Launch, Documentation & Onboarding
The One Key program and its supporting email design system launched enterprise-wide in Summer 2023, establishing a new standard for loyalty communications across Expedia Group and its flagship brands. The system now powers high-volume messaging—supporting multi-million-user acquisition campaigns—while delivering a consistent brand experience and enabling scalable implementation across all loyalty touchpoints.
Following launch, I led the development of comprehensive system documentation to support ongoing adoption and growth. This included detailed brand guidelines, Figma-based design documentation, and a robust library of reusable communication templates—standardizing implementation across teams and significantly accelerating time-to-market for future campaigns.
As design library owner, I partnered with leadership to guide onboarding for cross-functional teams across the organization. I developed training materials, hosted working sessions, and provided ongoing consultation to ensure seamless adoption. This structured approach reduced design overhead, improved operational efficiency, and enabled teams to adapt quickly to new business requirements—supporting consistent, high-quality user communications throughout the entire loyalty lifecycle.
Implementation into Design Library
Evolution: Iteration & Expansion
Post-launch, I led the continued evolution of the One Key email design system through ongoing iteration and expansion, aligning quarterly feature releases with broader business priorities. This included adapting the framework to support sub-branded campaigns and new product offerings—most notably, the launch of two One Key co-branded credit card products.
As system maintainer, I ensured ongoing design consistency by aligning loyalty program components with evolving brand standards and product requirements. I actively contributed to the design and execution of new campaign work, maintaining system integrity while enabling creative flexibility to support emerging business needs.
By continuously optimizing the design system and component library, I helped ensure that One Key communications remained scalable, brand-aligned, and user-focused—supporting long-term program growth and engagement.
Deployed Comms
CONTRIBUTIONS
CONTRIBUTIONS
project OVERVIEW
As Product Director, I adapted my role across multiple phases of the project to meet evolving needs, ensuring strategic continuity, cross-functional alignment, and successful delivery of the One Key email communication product:
Strategic Foundations: Led the development of the product’s strategic framework, identifying key information gaps and aligning communication goals with broader business objectives, user needs, marketing priorities, and loyalty engagement metrics.
Design System Creation: Directed the creation of One Key’s email design system, ensuring seamless integration with in-app experiences, scalability across loyalty touchpoints, and alignment with EG’s master email system. The system supported complex, data-driven personalization, dynamic content delivery, and campaign flexibility to support marketing goals across all brands.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Championed collaboration across design, brand, engineering, marketing, legal, and data teams to build a unified communication platform that elevated customer experience and reinforced the cross-brand travel ecosystem. My involvement spanned UX, messaging strategy, component development, and data-driven decision-making.
Technical, Legal & Marketing Alignment: Defined and documented product specifications to meet the needs of design, engineering, marketing, and legal stakeholders. Ensured communications were compliant with global regulations (CAN-SPAM, GDPR, etc.), while also meeting brand voice and campaign performance standards.
Adapting to Brand Evolution in Digital: Navigated continuous brand evolution as EG transitioned to a more unified, digital-first ecosystem. Ensured the communication product remained flexible and adaptive, enabling the design system to support changing brand guidelines, voice, and visual identity without sacrificing consistency or performance.
System Governance & Scaling: Built and maintained a robust design system and documentation hub in Figma, complete with reusable templates and modular components. I led onboarding efforts across teams, enabling efficient adoption, consistent implementation, and scalable execution across post-launch communications.
Hands-On Development & Data Integration: Partnered with developers to prototype and build modular email components and conducted QA across brands. I collaborated with data teams to define segmentation logic, validate personalization variables, and analyze performance data to inform future iterations and optimize user engagement.
KEY IMPACTS
KEY IMPACTS
Results
Gross bookings (up 8%) and hotel bookings (up 10%) increased YoY, among various other indicators, proving increased confidence in the business, flagship brands, and the understood value in the One Key loyalty program.
Accelerated development cycles through standardized, reusable design components and patterns, enabling faster time-to-market for new program campaigns and features, reducing production time by 35%, and simplifying implementation across teams
Established a specific email communication design system for One Key, EG's first-ever cross-brand loyalty program, enabling a successful program launch and tiered adoption of the design system company-wide.
Enhanced cross-brand consistency by integrating the loyalty framework within the existing company-wide design system
Successfully integrated across multiple brands, with system resilience during program updates and expansions
Future-proofed the design system through extensible architecture, supporting ongoing program evolution without requiring system rebuilds