I led the design of a trio of apps that enabled CondéNast Traveler to repurpose assets from the magazine and make money in mobile: Best of Italy, CruiseFinder and Etiquette 101. Best of Italy was the #1 selling iPad travel app in the App Store for 4 months.

The engagement was more like business consulting than design. We talked to editors and salespeople, and developed and pitched app ideas to the magazine. We used a “reverse survey search” strategy, asking respondents to list their favorite cruises or Italian beaches. The answers powered a recommendation engine surrounded by beautiful, top-performing content.

We started with a deep dive content audit in order to understand what was there, what performed well, and what we might be able to tweak to perform even better. For Etiquette 101, we pulled together content that spanned 8 different printed travel guides (previously only available to subscribers), and synthesized them into a simple, mobile-friendly visual guide.

For CruiseFinder, we leveraged the magazine’s annual user survey on cruises and essentially “reversed” the flow, making the app into a faceted search tool. With the CruiseFinder app, not only could users search user ratings, but they also had a consolidated never-before available view of all amenities across cruise lines and routes.

For Best of Italy, we did the same reverse-survey data trick that we did with CruiseFinder for categories such as Hotels and Beaches. Further, we brought Traveler’s incredible custom maps to life and transformed them into interactive walking tours; perfect for mobile users!