BuzzFeed
A hotel group's whole Google presence, from reviews and posts to photos, questions and amenities, run out of one console instead of one Google account per property, and tied back to what it earns.
One month of one listing (demo data)
Section 1 of 4
The idea
For a hotel, the Google listing is the shopfront: rating, photos, public questions, and whether it shows up at all when someone searches "5 stars hotel" in the Algarve.
Where the 637,451 views came from
90%Google Maps
10%Search
Google's own tool
- One property per dashboard
- One login per property
- No way to compare hotels
- No link to revenue
This console
- Every property in one place
- One login for the group
- Laggards visible at a glance
- Reputation work tied to revenue
Section 2 of 4
The problem it solves
Three tensions in every screen
1 hotel vs 40 hotels
The group view must show a laggard. The hotel view must make it fixable.
Fast vs personal
The same reply on every review reads worse than no reply at all.
Two different roles
Marketing and eCommerce managers ask completely different questions.
Same shell, a different first screen
Who logs in decides what leads
Marketing manager
- Outstanding tasks first
- Reputation and response rates
- Photos, posts, questions
eCommerce manager
- Revenue against traffic first
- Commercial trends
- Same numbers underneath
Fast and personal at the same time
The reply is written with the review on screen, a template one field away and a manager's signature already in. The quick path still reads like a person.
The form nobody wants to fill in
Google's hotel questionnaire has hundreds of required yes/no questions. It can't be shortened, so it was made countable: twelve categories, each with its own progress, one number for the property.
Section 3 of 4
The process
Research
What Google exposes for a business profile. The product can only show what the API already has.
GMB data model
User interviews
Separating the roles: who answers reviews, who fills in the questionnaire, who only asks about revenue.
Three audiences
Wireframes
Fourteen sections in one navigation, and the dashboard drawn twice: led by tasks, and by revenue.
Two dashboards
Testing
With people who manage real properties, against the questions they actually arrive with.
Role-led defaults
Design
One table, one filter row, one export and one empty state across all fourteen sections, plus a full dark theme.
Light and dark
Development
Empty, partial, in-progress and error states drawn for every section, not left to the build.
Dev-ready spec
Section 4 of 4
What I designed
Fourteen sections, one shell, from Dashboard and Review Management to Reporting and Support. The work was keeping them consistent.
Tying it back to money
Reputation work is easy to fund for a quarter and hard to fund for a year. Reporting puts the listing's numbers next to revenue and traffic, and sorts the hotels into excelling and underachieving.
Dark, properly
The dark theme was drawn by hand rather than inverted. Red still means unresponded and green still means healthy, the two colours people scan for.
Availability
Taking on freelance projects
Replies within 1–2 days
Location
Remote · Bulgaria
Local time
The first call
Free, and commits you to nothing
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