Working with the team

While managing this project, we worked together with the general manager, marketing team, and sales team at theWit. We asked their team members for feedback and worked with them to decide the best strategy based on their goals.

Design

We knew that we wanted to help potential guests visualize visiting the hotel, from entering the hotel’s lobby to walking around the property. So, as a result, we decided to highlight the hotel’s location and imagery, as well as focus on encouraging more bookings.

Highlighting location

Since theWit is located in downtown Chicago, we wanted to feature its iconic locale. We thought about why the location was iconic and were inspired by the lyrics, “On State Street, that great street,” from Frank Sinatra’s famous song “Chicago.” These lyrics inspired us to use images of famous views near the hotel, such as sights of the Chicago Theatre, Millennium Park, and the Chicago River.

Utilizing imagery

theWit’s website needed to properly illustrate the hotel’s remarkable features. In particular, we chose to utilize oversized photo sizes. We also employed detailed photos, so that people viewing the website would be able to see glimpses of some of the hotel’s most attractive characteristics. The images on theWit’s website work to give justice to the hotel’s exciting and elegant spaces.

Focusing on conversion

Ultimately, theWit’s new website was designed to convert customers. During the process of redesigning the website, we decided to prioritize room and event bookings, while still balancing showcasing the hotel’s luxurious features and location. To help accomplish this, we optimized the RFP form submission process for event bookings by placing call to actions in convenient places for users to see on the website. Likewise, we also needed to make it easy for someone to book a hotel room on the site. We added a “Reservations” button to the header on each page so that users can easily book a room, no matter where they are on the site. To make the button stand out, we simplified the surrounding header layout by only using basic features, like a hamburger menu and logo.