Role
Lead Product Designer
Client
Virgin Active
Duration, Year
2weeks, 2025
Services
Product Design (UX/UI)
Design Strategy
User Flow Mapping
Rapid Prototyping
Contributors
Julian Parr (Solution Architect)
Context
Virgin Active’s Club-V program supports childcare booking through the mobile app, but the booking logic was originally designed for a single child. As more parents enrolled multiple children into different programs, the experience began to break. Parents were repeating the entire five-step booking process for each child, often while multitasking at home or rushing into the gym. The system also lacked clear visibility of overlapping availability, making it hard to secure spots for more than one child.
My task was to reimagine the booking experience so it could support:
Multi-child families
Real-time capacity and availability
Fast mobile decision making
Reuse of Virgin Active’s existing design system and booking patterns
All within a tight three-week window.
Babies and Toddlz: 6 weeks - 2 years
Active kids: 3-12 years
Problem
To understand the current experience, I mapped the as-is Creche booking flow. This revealed technical dependencies, redundant steps, and significant user frustration.
Key issue identified:
↓
Insight
Insight: Parents needed a faster, clearer, and more consolidated booking experience. One that supported multiple children, reduced cognitive load, and allowed them to compare availability across programs at a glance.
This directly shaped the next step: defining the user persona and their goals.
User Persona
Behaviours across contexts:
Night before: Plans the next day’s gym session and books while multitasking at home.
A few days ahead: Schedules for the week and wants to see which days still have availability.
Same-day booking: Books while commuting or at reception, often under time pressure.
Design Goals
Based on the persona and pain points, I defined four design goals for the new experience:
Rapid Prototyping
To accelerate alignment, I used Claude and Figma Make to generate early wireframes and flows. This rapid prototype allowed me to visualise booking logic, hierarchy, and actions within hours.
This initial version helped the team quickly understand the structure but lacked Virgin-specific logic. After reviewing with the solution architect and the internal design team, we agreed to refine the flow further.
Research and
Internal Workshop
I facilitated a cross-functional workshop with the dev and design teams to stress test the rapid prototype. Together we identified:
Key insights from the workshop:
Opportunities to align the creche flow with the existing gym class booking pattern
The need for two-step segmentation instead of a single long flow
A requirement for colour-coded capacity states (green, yellow, red)
System constraints around capacity per program (Babies and Toddlez, Active Kids)
I also conducted competitor booking flows across Fitness, childcare, and appointment-based apps to ensure the new experience followed familiar mobile mental models. (FIT Lane Cove, One Playground, Anytime Fitness, and Betty Part Leisure Centre to understand how others displayed capacity and scheduling for multiple participants.)
Most provided solid single-child flows but none supported multi-child selection or dual-program capacity.
These insights became the foundation for the improved design.
Design Direction Adjustment
Design System and
Component Adaptation
Virgin Active had an existing design system, but it did not fully support multi-child scenarios. I reused as much as possible to ensure consistency, then extended it where necessary.
This approach ensured the new flow felt native to the app while addressing unique creche booking needs.
Final Design Solution
Users select multiple children and see program availability in 15-minute increments to identify overlapping times.
Multi-select children in one view (book two or more)
Capacity visibility per date (colour-coded)
15-minute intervals to align across age groups
Booking summary before confirmation
A simplified version that maintains consistency with the overall pattern.
Simplified layout for parents booking one child
Consistent colour indicators
Reusable UI pattern for scalability
The system pre-selects the only child, shortening the flow.
Automatically selects the only registered child
Skips unnecessary steps and accelerates completion
Fully Booked Status
Outcome
The redesigned flow reduced unnecessary steps, improved visibility of availability, and allowed parents to book multiple children within one guided journey. The Virgin Active team approved the design in the first presentation and moved it directly to development without requesting changes.
Although I completed my contract before deployment, the handover included annotated screens, states, and interaction logic ready for implementation.
Findings and Learning
This project highlighted the importance of:Although I completed my contract before deployment, the handover included annotated screens, states, and interaction logic ready for implementation.
The final solution balanced speed, usability, and technical feasibility while maintaining a native feel inside the existing Virgin Active mobile ecosystem.
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