Hyatt Restaurants
In November 2023, I led the UX and UI redesign of Hyatt’s regional restaurant websites — a project focused on aligning the experience with Hyatt’s global brand standards while addressing regional accessibility requirements and deep cultural nuance. The result: a significant boost in online engagement and measurable increases in bookings and event registrations.
Client
Hyatt Hotels
Service
User Experience (UX) Design
Date
2023
Project Overview
The Challenge
Despite Hyatt’s strong brand recognition, the existing digital experience for their restaurants lacked consistency, accessibility, and cultural relevance, especially across Europe and the Middle East. The websites had limited structure for promoting offers, event visibility was low, and most interfaces did not support accessibility standards soon to be required by law.
Key challenges included:
Outdated UI patterns and fragmented brand expression
Limited accessibility support (no keyboard nav, low contrast, poor screen reader structure)
UX that didn’t reflect local cultural expectations, particularly in the Gulf region
Poor visibility into performance and content flexibility for regional marketing teams
My Role
As the only designer supporting the EAME (Europe, Africa, and Middle East) region, I acted as the bridge between Hyatt’s core design team in Chicago and the regional business teams.
I was responsible for leading the end-to-end UX strategy and design execution, which included:
Aligning product and brand priorities across global and local teams
Designing flexible, scalable UI components and interaction patterns
Leading and synthesizing regional user research
Advocating for accessibility compliance and cultural sensitivity
Presenting outcomes to core product stakeholders and ensuring global consistency with local nuance
First steps
Strategy
To address these issues, we approached the redesign through three strategic pillars:
Brand Alignment & Systematization
We unified all regional restaurant experiences under a flexible component system, aligned with Hyatt’s global brand guidelines, including typography, tone of voice, and visual language.Accessibility First
With the upcoming European Accessibility Act (EAA) set to take effect in June 2025, we rebuilt the website experience with WCAG 2.1 compliance in mind — including keyboard navigation, high-contrast design options, ARIA labels, and improved focus states.Cultural Adaptation
We conducted user interviews in Dubai and worked closely with stakeholders across multiple countries to understand local needs — particularly those related to Islamic culture, such as respecting fasting schedules, gender dynamics in dining, and language localization for Arabic.
Outcomes
Research & Discovery
Stakeholder Interviews
We interviewed 12+ stakeholders across Switzerland, UAE, Spain, and the U.S. to understand business priorities, localization needs, operational pain points, and performance metrics. This included marketing leads, hotel managers, and regional brand owners.User Research in Dubai
In-person sessions with guests and locals in Dubai revealed how people discover, book, and experience restaurants online — highlighting needs around halal options, mobile-first browsing, and event visibility during Ramadan and other cultural moments.Internal Users & Back Office
In addition to guest-facing improvements, I worked closely with internal teams to understand how they manage content, menus, events, and local offers. This included shadowing back-office workflows, identifying gaps in CMS usability, and advocating for clearer structure and scalable design patterns to improve the daily experience of content managers across regions.Developer Alignment
Throughout the project, I collaborated with front-end developers to ensure every component was designed with implementation in mind, optimizing for reusability, performance, and accessibility compliance. We used shared Figma libraries, component specs, and regular syncs to streamline handoff and reduce rework.Accessibility Audit
A full accessibility audit was conducted across flows, resulting in more than 30 friction points addressed, from keyboard navigation to contrast, ARIA labels, and form inputs, ensuring the product moves toward full WCAG 2.1 compliance, ahead of the 2025 European Accessibility Act.
The final result
Impact & Results
+320% increase in bookings
+648% increase in event registrations
+104% increase in total visitors
–25% fewer phone calls, indicating a more effective self-serve UX
Stronger content autonomy for marketing teams
Seamless scalability across languages and regions
Final Thoughts
This redesign wasn’t just about improving the UI, it was about respecting cultural context, empowering internal teams, and meeting global accessibility standards. The success of the project proved that hospitality online must be as thoughtful and inclusive as it is in person, and that regional understanding is essential to global scale.
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