Boatsetter
A faster way to find, book and manage a boat — and one place to talk to the owner and captain
Details
Partner
Boatsetter
Space
Marketplace
Timeline
May 2020 – Mar 2021
Mission?
Boat-rental marketplace. Led the booking and messaging redesign for the US-to-Europe expansion on a new 500+ component design system; the multi-party messaging rework cut support load by 28%.
Role
Senior UI/UX Designer
Introduction
Boatsetter is the leading boat rental platform in the United States. Users can easily book boats directly from owners and enjoy a safe and seamless rental experience. As a product designer, my mission was to improve the booking flow, make boat selection easier, and create a user-centered interface to increase booking rates and reduce user frustration.
Problem
As the platform grew, several user experience challenges emerged. The boat screen was complicated and unclear. Information about boats, pricing, and parameters was incomplete or difficult to access, causing confusion and drop-offs. Communication between renters, captains, and boat owners relied on external apps, making coordination difficult and leading to misunderstandings. Additionally, the lack of a unified design system resulted in inconsistent interfaces, slower development, and reduced scalability.
Vision
The goal was to streamline the booking journey, make the platform more transparent, and help users complete bookings faster.
I envisioned an intuitive and modern interface supported by a design system to ensure consistency, simplify maintenance, and create a better user experience.
Process
To solve these challenges, I followed a structured and iterative design process:
I began with a product audit, analyzing the current web and mobile interfaces and identifying improvement areas.
User feedback was collected through interviews, reviews, and analytics, which shaped the new UX direction. A design system was created with guidelines for grids, typography, color palettes, and components to unify the platform visually and functionally. A new internal chat was designed and tested to improve communication between users and boat owners. The boat screen was redesigned with a focus on clear and complete information display, optimized booking flow, and easier editing and canceling processes. Usability testing was conducted throughout the project to validate solutions and refine them based on real user insights.
Collaboration
This project involved close collaboration across multiple teams. I worked daily with product managers to align on goals and priorities, developers to ensure smooth handoff and implementation, and marketing and support teams to better understand user pain points and communicate changes effectively.
User researchers also supported usability testing and feedback collection.
Results
After launch the new boat screen and booking flow made it quicker to find and book a boat, and completed bookings went up. The in-app messaging between renters, captains and owners replaced the external apps people had been using, and support load dropped by 28%. The design system (500+ components) gave engineering one source of truth and sped up releases for the European launch.
