MGMRI Homepage

MGM Resorts International is a global hospitality and entertainment company operating destination resorts in Las Vegas and various other states and countries around the world.

CHALLENGE

Challenge: How can we increase conversion and exploration of offerings on the homepage?

The legacy homepage was designed with a corporate, investor-focused approach and did not effectively cater to the needs of resort guests looking to book rooms. This resulted in suboptimal conversion rates and a lack of engagement with certain modules. Additionally, users were not browsing beyond the hero section, missing out on key information and booking opportunities.

Business objectives

Increase traffic to booking & showcased offerings
Increased awareness of breadth of offerings & rewards program
Increased awareness of MGM’s resort portfolio

SOLUTION

Solution: A homepage that reimagines room booking, celebrates featured offers and educates guests about MGM's resort portfolio

I led the design overhaul of MGM Resort's homepage, transforming it from corporate to customer-focused. The new design serves as a starting point for discovery and brand education, incorporating the latest Gen3 design language for a fresh, modern aesthetic. Working closely with our accessibility consultant, I adhered to WCAG AA standards, ensuring all users can easily navigate the content on MGM's homepage, a team first. Net new modules addressed customer pain-points, leading to increased bookings, better exposure of offerings, and heightened brand awareness of MGM's resort portfolio. This was a trailblazing cross-team project, utilizing a new tech stack and setting the foundation for MGM's new design system, Vega.

Business outcomes

+$15.3 Million annualized incremental revenue
+$9.2 Million annualized incremental EBITDAR
+25% Traffic to booking (desktop)
+13.7% Average order value

Final design delivery displaying the room booking module and hero promotional image on mobile web and desktop.

DESIGN WALKTHROUGH

Consolidated room booking module

To better serve travelers, I streamlined the room booking module based on customer research and online hospitality best practices. The room booking module was seperated from the hero image to focus on non-room promotions. Results led to increased traffic & CVR to room booking & showcased offerings.

❌ Outdated dropdown form

The old room booking module used dropdowns that obscured the hero image and reduced its emotional impact. This, combined with a preset region picker set solely to Vegas, made the experience uninviting for regional customers.

✅ Consolidated module

I improved the room booking module by separating the hero offer and booking widget, creating space for non-room marketing promotions and better accommodating regional customers with the addition of "recent searches." I also streamlined the booking process by combining the region and resort pickers.

Screens of each of the related modules that appear on-click when interacting with the new room booking module.

New promo cards, category navigation & carousels

To enhance the discovery of MGM's extensive offerings and promote its rewards program, I introduced new features such as a "Find Something Unforgettable" featured carousel for selling more offerings on the page efficiently, and a "Continue Browsing" recently viewed carousel serving as a browsing history for returning guests, boosting conversion by 6%. The "Start Your Next Escape" category navigation helps customers effortlessly find offers, dining, entertainment, addressing a pain point for mobile web navigation.

❌ Old categories buried in hamburger nav

Previously, MGM guests had to go through multiple steps to navigate to a category page.

✅ New categories visualized front & center

New category cards were celebrated, helping guests better visualize their trip.

"Meet Our Resorts" module

I created the "Meet Our Resorts" experience to visually showcase each resort's architecture, rooms, and key amenities as a tool for brand education. In the future, this evolve into a comprehensive resorts category page. Not shown is the MGM Rewards promo card which was designed to dynamically adjust content and calls-to-action based on the login state, driving MGM Rewards sign-ups and logins.

I created the "Meet Our Resorts" experience to visually showcase each resort's architecture, rooms, and key amenities as a tool for brand education.

RESEARCH & SYNTHESIS

Early research and synthesis

I began this project by doing an audit of the current homepage experience and working with Product partners to collect useful clickthrough and scroll data as seen in the heatmap below. Next, I worked with my supporting design collegue to collect inspiration of other homepages in the hospitality industry. The final image shows an audit I conducted of MGM's offer cards, which were varied and inconconsistent across offer types and category pages. Part of this project involved designing a more scalable offer card.

Early design audit of the legacy homepage paired with screens showing average clickthrough of modules and scroll depth.

I worked with my supporting design collegue to collect inspiration of other homepages in the hospitality industry.

Part of this project involved designing a more scalable offer card.

IDEATION & CONCEPT VETTING

Ideation and concept studies

The following screen showcases early wireframes used in a concept study. The next screen shows design explorations of the "Meet Our Resorts." A modal approach was chosen to address guests' need for visual context. The higher fidelity mockups reflect the refined concepts tested in a "Next Click" study.

Early wireframes used for a concept study.

Design explorations of the "Meet Our Resorts." A modal approach was chosen to address guests' need for visual context.

Higher fidelity mockups reflect the refined concepts tested in a "Next Click" study.

DELIVERY

Design and accessibility documentation

I take pride in completing thorough documentation. This serves two purposes: (1) It helps partners in Engineering more efficiently develop based on designs and (2) it reduces the amount of time I need to help with design QA. These first two screens show a zoomed in and out view of design documentation completed for this project. The latter two images show zoomed in and out views of accessibility documentation completed for this project.

Zoomed out image of design documentation I created for this project.

Zoomed in image of design documentation I created for this project.

Zoomed out image of accessibility documentation I created for this project in collaboration with an accessibility consultant.

Zoomed in image of accessibility documentation I created for this project in collaboration with an accessibility consultant.

Team acknowledgement

The success of this project would not have been possible without the contributions and support of my amazing team members.

Gwendolyn Saito, Senior Product Lead
John Clark Cochran, Senior Design Lead
Peter Gorgenyi, Senior Engineering Lead
Derek Staley, Senior Program Manager
Joey Fife, Junior Product Lead
Anke Hennen, Director of Marketing
Benjamin Hubble, Executive Director of Marketing Tech. Dev.

Elevating the homepage experience of an iconic hospitality brand