App & Web Development

guest porter.

Custom app, software and website development for an innovative London startup.

Objective

We were asked by Guest Porter to design and create integrated applications that would facilitate the delivery of their innovative luggage handling service.

Guest Porter came about after an Airbnb host realised that carrying luggage was an inconvenience for many of his guests. Travellers were having to haul their baggage around London until check-in opened, or find a storage space that would require collection before check-in.

Their solution was to create a meet-and-greet bag collection service. Travellers are met at a railway station when they arrive, hand over their luggage and get it delivered directly to their accommodation once checked in. The service also offers welcome packs as optional extras.

We designed and developed all the tools to bring the idea to market, this included an iOS app for porters, web booking experience for customers and Laravel portal for adminstrators/managers.

ux design. web design. web development. laravel development.

Workshop & Discovery

We organised a workshop in London at the beginning of the project to develop a plan of action and gain a complete understanding of Guest Porter’s requirements.

The user journeys were drafted for each experience – website booking, customer account area, administrator portal for booking management and iOS app for porters. Once they were agreed, we further developed them into wireframes and distributed the prototypes among key stakeholders for A/B testing and approval.

UI Design & Web Development

Our designers crafted an eye-catching brand that appealed to their core demographic: business and VIP travellers. This included a custom logo mark, fonts and a design stylesheet for applying the brand in the real-word.

Once the brand had come alive, our UI/UX (user experience) design team created a user interface aesthetic, tailoring each platform to the stakeholder it was aimed at. This ensured that porters, customers and admins could access the information they needed quickly and also promoted the new brand identity.

Guest Porter were particularly impressed with the smooth transition between the design and development stages, which was aided by the harmony of our in-house departments.

The customer-facing system was built using a combination of Laravel (PHP framework) and React (Javascript). It features a range of integrations that improve the user experience, such as Stripe for secure payments and Twilio and Mailgun for omnichannel booking management.

We also developed a custom landing page to promote the service to Airbnb hosts, encouraging them to sign up by offering their guests a discount. Once signed up, hosts are automatically added into the partner host database, assigned a unique discount code and provided with a link to send their guests, further promoting the service.

iOS App Development

We created an iOS application using ReactNative for porters to install the app on their personal devices, negating the need for expensive custom hardware. Similarly to the customer-facing system, this application has a range of integrations to make sure the whole experience is joined up for both staff and customers.

Guest Porter wanted to use a handheld label-printer for tagging guest’s bags. This was facilitated by our in-depth knowledge of Objective C; we created custom code that connected the devices wirelessly and made tagging luggage effortless.

The iOS app also integrates with the GuestPorter API we developed alongside the application, so it feeds data into the management system which is only accessible to HQ staff.

Testing & Deployment

Our quality assurance put the interfaces through their paces with end-to-end testing. This verified the tools stability, usability and security. It concluded with a physical run through at each station (see below) with real-world factors such as poor connection and human error.

We also provided a full onboarding document and video to Guest Porter, making it easier to for staff to promote the service and aiding in-house troubleshooting.

Deployment was the last stage of the project and only began after Guest Porter and ourselves were confident in the tools, as well as their ability to go above-and-beyond requirements.

You can visit their website and see our digital creation for yourself.

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guest porter.

Real-world testing.