01. OVERVIEW

Summer at Flybits

Who's Flybits?

Flybits empowers financial institutions to harness the power of data with speed and agility by delivering contextual and personalized banking experiences.

My Role

As Flybits’ first-ever Product Design Intern, I led the end-to-end design of Flybits Life, an internal mobile app built to personalize the hybrid work experience for 100+ employees.

Over the course of 4 months, I worked cross-functionally with a product manager, engineers, QA, and stakeholders to deliver a fully designed MVP. From research and UX strategy to UI systems and developer handoff, I ended off the term while contributing to Flybits’ annual product summit.

My Impact

Owned full product design lifecycle from ideation, wireframes, and user flows to high-fidelity prototypes

Established the design system from scratch, accelerating dev handoff and ensuring cross-platform consistency

Streamlined engineering collaboration using Material Design, reducing implementation time across iOS and Android

Conducted internal user research to shape personalized, employee-centric experiences for 100+ users

Context & Background

The Challenge

Design and ship a functional internal mobile app in just 10 weeks — powered entirely by the Flybits platform. As Flybits shifted to a hybrid model, we were tasked with reimagining the employee experience by "dogfooding" our own tech to uncover real platform insights and pain points.

The Goal

Refine Flybits Life App to:

Centralize in-office scheduling (goodbye Envoy!)
Push timely announcements and updates
Give visitors and employees a seamless experience powered by Flybits tech

The Deliverable

A working MVP of Flybits Life, demo-ready for the company’s Summer Product Summit that's designed, tested, and built by interns in under 10 weeks.

That leads us to...

How Might We

Use the Flybits platform to enrich the employee experience, improve engagement, and make hybrid work more rewarding and productive?

Objective

Elevate the working experience to a one-stop shop, virtual concierge that:

Empower flybits employees to manage their hybrid work experience
Create a channel for people and culture to organize in-office days and communication
Leverage the flybits platform to personalize the experience based on your situation

02. PROBLEM SPACE

User Reseach

To better understand the problem space, I conducted a company-wide survey alongside 1:1 user interviews with my project manager to gauge the current experiences of employees. At the time, Flybits relied on the app Envoy primarily for transactional tasks—such as booking in-office days, lunch numbers, and contact tracing.

Current Experience

What’s Working

Employee Presence: Who’s in the office is tracked via Envoy and manual check-ins

Lunch Planning: Lunch menus are updated manually by HR

Key Challenges

Incomplete Attendance Data: Many employees forget to log their in-person office days, making it difficult for People & Culture to accurately estimate lunch quantities or plan events since they need 24-48 hours notice for accurate planning

Low Adoption: Not all employees use the current tools, reducing the effectiveness of internal communications

Disjointed Communication: Information is scattered across platforms (Slack, GCal, email), leading to missed updates and lower engagement.

Interview Summary — Key Insights from 10 Participates

This lead our research to focus on uncovering what a more meaningful hybrid work experience could look like. We identified two key user groups and what they really needed:

People & Culture (HR)

Who would be responsible for managing content, collecting feedback, and ensuring smooth operations

Flybits Employees

Primary users of the app, who needed a more intuitive, engaging, and personalized experience

Core Features (MVP)

Auto check-in/registration (possibly geolocation-based)
Push notifications for important updates
Company-wide announcements: events, socials, celebrations
Lunch previews (what’s being served)
Personalized feed ideas: quotes of the day, memes, cute photos, etc.

Communication Style

The app will primarily support one-way communication from company/admin to employees
Minimal employee input—focused more on receiving than interacting
Create a more dynamic and user-friendly alternative to tools like Envoy

Long-Term Vision

Evolve into a hybrid utility + social platform
Shift informal social interaction (currently on Slack) into the app

Community & Culture Goals

Mandatory app usage to unify internal engagement
Contact tracing functionality
Feedback form for suggestions (routed to DRI or HR rep)
Dedicated events section (especially for seasonal/social events)

Feature Requests

Encourage storytelling and celebrations (e.g. summer fun) via a community feed
Support informal bonding: challenges, ping pong, social matches
Use “Donut-style” stats to see who’s been paired or met
Migrate all current Envoy functionality to the new app

Dashboard Must-Haves

App usage metrics (sign-ups, active users)
In-office attendance stats + popular days/trends
Event feedback (ratings, preferences, survey input)

Hybrid Work Survey – Key Insights from 25 Participates

Target: Employees who sometimes or always come into the office

Registration & Routine

Navigation & Collaboration

Communication & Awareness

Feature Priorities

Top Features Desired

Push notification reminders to register
Central dashboard for alerts
Interactive floor plan (desks & meeting rooms)

Lower Priority

Vacation/sick day booking
Social/event discovery
All-in-one benefits section

Increase Number of Hybrid Employees

Motivators to Come in

Social events (19 votes)
Commuter reimbursement (18)

Lunch voting (15)
Coffee chat matchups, workshops, creative spaces

Suggestions for Improvement

Personalized weekly goals & highlights
Smart notifications (ex. when lunch arrives for in-office people)
Shared interests (games, sports, movies) to connect coworkers
Gamified engagement (daily log-in rewards, ballots for monthly draws)
Activity forums, carpooling coordination, calendar sync

Defining the User

Drawing from interviews, survey responses, and the broader project vision (including showcasing the Flybits platform to visiting guests) I identified three key user archetypes. These personas serve as a tool to both guide our design decisions and help internal stakeholders better understand who we’re building this app for.

Employee 1

Comes in x2 a week, lives near office

Employee 2

Lives far from office, prefers remote work

Guest

Potential client or touring guest

Goals & Motivations

Build relationships, ideate, collaborate with coworkers
Participate in lunch programs and in-person events
Take advantage of free snacks, activities (ping pong, puzzles)
Know who's in the office, vote on lunch options

Attend workshops, L&D sessions, social events occasionally
Join when there are strong incentives (lunches, team gatherings)
Maintain flexibility to work around family/personal life

Get a quick, visual introduction to Flybits
Learn more about the platform's capabilities
Experience a tour of the office and product
Understand how Flybits leverages its own tech

Pain Points

Desk/equipment gets taken or not cleaned
Room bookings not respected
Lack of whiteboarding supplies
Unclear seating plans or floor layout

Registers late or forgets to register
Doesn’t know where to sit or where their team is
Commute feels unworthy unless there’s clear value
App doesn’t feel personalized to remote/hybrid needs

Needs to download an app just to access basic info
Limited access so it feels like extra effort for a brief visit

Needs & Expectations

Desk + equipment availability
Office layout with booking integration
In-person interaction support (lunch queue, who’s in today)
Smooth communication + updates from HR/events

Fluid hybrid model support
Flexible hours + quick check-out at 5
Clear reason to visit the office (events, lunches, workshops)
Ways to stay connected socially and professionally online

A simple, seamless preview experience
Intuitive onboarding, minimal friction
Engaging, visually rich content
Ability to explore without heavy sign-up flows

Competitive Analysis: Where's Our Opportunity?

To better understand the current space of workplace management tools and identify opportunities for differentiation, I analyzed both internal tools and external competitors.

Feature/Insight

Current Tool (Envoy)

External Competitors (WhosOnLocation, SwipedOn)

Purpose

Hybrid schedule + desk booking

Visitor management + employee safety

Strength

Workplace coordination

Security, compliance, and alerts

Limitation

Lacks community, dry UX

Focused on security/logistics, no engagement focus

Personalization

None

Limited

Used for Community Building

Flybits Life Opportunity

Replace + enrich with context + social layer

Combine utility + engagement + go beyond check-ins

O3. IDEATION & IMPLEMENTATION

Project Vision & MVP Scope

So what can we really do? With a tight deadline, we kicked off with collaborative brainstorming sessions that mapped user needs to Flybits’ platform capabilities. These early discussions shaped a product vision that combined utility with personalization, leading to key feature themes:

What’s Working

Key Outcomes

A real-time home hub for updates, meetings, and weather
A social layer to reflect and reinforce Flybits’ internal culture
Role-based access (admin, employee, guest) for customized experiences
Seamless G-Suite/Google Calendar integration
Emphasis on automation, ease of use, and onboarding flow

Initial Concepts & Feature Ideas

Auto sign-in with GSuite ID
Personalized dashboard with user-specific info
Announcements, surveys, and onboarding tours
Lunch menus + dietary preferences (admin-view only)
Activity leaderboards, challenges, and gamified engagement
Room booking and interactive floor plans
Request/feedback form for HR

Facing Reality

Defining the MVP
‍
‍After technical consultations and user research, we narrowed the MVP scope to two high-impact features that could be implemented rapidly using Flybits’ Concierge and Experience Studio:

G-Suite Authentication for secure login and personalized homepage access
Office Registration System to replace the current manual process handled via Envoy

Additional MVP Candidates (Deferred for Future Phases)

Profile dashboard (with BambooHR integration)
Feedback/request forms for HR
Lunch menus + dietary preferences (admin-view only)

Technical Considerations

GSuite login as IdP
Role-based permissions: Employee, Admin, Guest
Concierge + Experience Studio → quick content updatesModular build for future feature rollout

Integrating the Flybits Platform

To streamline the process and leverage the Flybits ecosystem, we’ll power dynamic content delivery, contextual personalization, and simplified development. Here’s how each component plays a role:

Component

Purpose

Impact

Concierge

Low-code presentation layer using Flybits SDK, focused on creating value-driven features

Visitor management + employee safety

Experience Studio

No-code editor for building personalized content & cards

Security, compliance, and alerts

Developer Portal

Replace + enrich with context + social layer

Combine utility + engagement + go beyond check-ins

Real Use Cases & Card System

To create a dynamic and personalized pages that help validate and bring key app features to life, we’ll use a variety of card templates tailored to different use cases. These are built and managed through Experience Studio, combining data, context, and content to deliver personalized, frictionless employee journeys.

Card Type

How It Works

Use Case for Flybits Life

Webview/Internal Browser Cards

Embed Google Forms in a card that connects to Sheets and sends real-time notifications

HR Feedback Form, Pre-screening, Requests

Personalized Cards

Context-aware content based on location, role, or behaviour

Weather Card (geo-based), Dashboard Stats, Suggested Activities

Information Cards

Rich static content, expandable for long-form info

Welcome to Flybits, Platform Overview, Media Mentions

Announcement Cards

Timely broadcast content with optional push notifications

Company-wide annoucements for Monthly Socials, Lunch Menus, All-Hands Meeting Notices

Push Notification

Drives engagement and improve adoption by triggers like behaviour, time, or location

Check-in/Pre-screening form Reminders, Event Alerts, First-Time Welcome, RSVP Prompts

04. DESIGN

Information Architecture

With my project manager, I started to map out the user flow and wireframe screens to determine the journey users will have but also for the team to be aligned in what screens and features the app will have.

User Flow mapped out in Figjam

Wireframes and Lo-fi Iterations

While the brainstorm gave us tons of ideas, I had to stay realistic about what core screens were essential for the demo. I started by mapping them out by using the key user flows, which helped define the main pages for the nav bar, then built out what was needed from there.

Iterating Through Feedback

Throughout the design process, I gathered input from my mentor, stakeholders, and fellow designers. Their feedback pushed me to rethink the structure and logic of several screens.

Key considerations

Is full onboarding necessary for an MVP, or should we scale it back?

Where should the Request/Feedback form live? Its own page, a homepage card, or a floating button?

Should Office Registration be a modal, a separate screen, or a quick action?

What quick links or info are most essential to users?

Resulting changes

Simplified onboarding to focus on GSuite sign-in only.

Moved Pre-screening and Request/Feedback forms to Webview cards in Concierge (instead of native builds).

Deprioritized the Profile Dashboard to reduce scope and complexity.

Postponed floor plans and desk reservation, which were often requested, but not feasible for Phase 1.

Leveraging Material Design for Efficiency & Scalability

To streamline the design-to-development process, I chose to adopt Google’s Material Design system as the foundation for our UI. Although the Flybits Life app was being built for both iOS and Android platforms, using a pre-existing design system allowed us to accelerate both design iterations and developer handoff which helped reduce ambiguity and ensured consistency across components.

This approach was also a personal growth opportunity: having primarily designed with Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines in the past, working with Material Design pushed me to expand my design language and think more critically about interaction patterns on Android. The result was a more efficient workflow and a smoother path to implementation for our cross-functional team.

Building the Design System

Since the team was starting from scratch and our timeline was limited, I took the initiative to create a foundational design system early in the process. This system was built to not only streamline my own workflow and maintain consistency across screens, but also to set up future designers for success, ensuring a scalable and reusable design foundation for when the project is handed off.

Style Guide

For Phase 1 and our MVP, I focused on building out the core elements necessary to support the sprint goals. Other than the app icon, Flybits already had an existing brand foundation, including colours and type guidelines, which I adapted into our app design.

Typography

Colour

App Design Icon

I explored different icons for the face of the app and created a custom app icon to reflect the internal identity of the project.

Components

To maximize efficiency and maintain consistency, I created a library of reusable components and variants for the most commonly used elements. This included:

Navigation bar
Card templates for use in Experience Studio
Color-coded profile icons mapped to internal squads
Icon sets and button styles

These components not only sped up prototyping and iteration, but also allowed for quick implementation by developers using a consistent and predictable system.

05. SOLUTION

Final MVP

By the end of the 10th week I designed an MVP of the Flybits life App to finish phase 1 and handed off the screens to the development team to create a demo for the annual product summit.

View prototype ↗

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Product Summit

It’s Demo Day!

Shirlyn (PM) kicked things off by presenting the current demo, product vision, and roadmap that gave everyone a clear look at what the app is all about and where we’re headed. Attendees could scan a QR code to explore the demo, with iPhone users able to launch it directly on their devices. After the presentations, employees stopped by our booth to experience the product firsthand. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with lots of excitement and curiosity around what’s coming next.

Working alongside front-end, Hassan and Gray with the help from Mike turned my designs into functionality. Here's what were able to ship and demo:
‍
✅ G-Suite authentication for seamless onboarding
✅ Concierge-powered homepage with context-aware experiences
✅ Functional single-day in-office scheduling
✅ Suggestion and recommendation forms integrated via Concierge

Built with:

Flybits Concierge + Experience Studio
Google Sign-In
Flutter (with native SDK integration)
Internal tools like BambooHR

Designing for Real People

In addition to designing the app, I was tasked with developing five core personas representing key user archetypes across Flybits’ platform ecosystem. These personas were used at the Product Summit to help attendees better understand the full user journey.To build these, I conducted interviews with employees across departments including consultants, business strategists, engineers, and even the CTO! These conversations gave me deep insight into the Flybits community and helped shape relatable, purpose-driven personas that guided our design thinking. I also collaborated with the marketing team to refine layout and messaging.

06. CONCLUSION

Reflection

That’s a Wrap!

My summer at Flybits officially came to a close after Demo Day and my documentation period, where we showcased everything the intern team built. Before heading out, I spent time creating a detailed handoff doc for both design and product that summarized Phase 1, outlining future features and roadblocks, and helping set the stage for upcoming phases. Shirlyn (PM) and I mapped out 5 future phases to guide the next team, covering feature prioritization, design system guidelines, and lessons learned from development so far.

What I Learned this Summer

Resume

INTRODUCING

Flybits Life

Sign in, effortlessly.

It knows when you're in.

See who's in. Set your schedule.

Made for you.

Elevating and Personalizing the Hybrid Experience