Innovation Motion Tracking Products Research Startups Team Lead UX

I lead the design team of Novility, a start-up that developed a training system based on motion tracking and voice recognition technologies, to teach hotel housekeepers the correct procedures, ergonomic movements and required English language skills to perform their job efficiently and free of injuries.

Housekeeping is hard work

Hotels have a hard time making sure that their housekeepers continuously deliver high-quality service, mostly due to inconsistencies in training. This is made more difficult given the fact that workforces often consist of low-skilled immigrants that do not speak the local language. On top of all this, being a housekeeper is really hard work, and they are at high risk of injuries due to physical strain, causing a high turn-over rate for the workforce and creating a loop in the problem of training new personnel. What could we do to improve this situation?

Bridging tech and business with design

I joined the 2 founders of Novility as the first employee, and my role as head of Design & Development was to bring together their business vision and the technical possibilities into a cohesive product experience that would benefit our users. As our team grew to more than 30 people, I lead our efforts and was actively involved in the definition of our products’ value proposition, the design of hardware and software, plus overseeing the company’s visual communication.

Housekeepers at the center of it all

We observed and talked to housekeepers all over the world, collecting insights on what they work on and how they do it. We talked to their managers to know what they have the most problems with. We researched the break-through technologies available to us at the time, and how they could help us in making the life of housekeepers and managers easier.

The future of hospitality training

The result is an innovative system that delivers a customizable standardized training while leveraging gamification techniques to maximize engagement. By using 3D animations we are very flexible on what is displayed for the needs of the particular hotel where it is deployed, and it allows us to translate it into many different languages to accommodate for the various nationalities of the housekeepers. We use motion-sensing technologies that allow us to train housekeepers in proper ergonomic movements to avoid injuries during their work, and we take advantage of speech recognition to teach them basic English phrases that they can use to communicate with customers.

A companion app was designed to help housekeepers to practice their protocol related exercises away from the training station, making sure that they would get enough time going through all the necessary details to deliver a consistent quality

Our solution also included a comprehensive analysis and management online platform for managers, that allows them to track and measure their team’s performance with insightful training analytics, and to be ready to take corrective action when necessary.

The talk of the town

Novility has been prominently showcased in many hospitality events and conferences the last few years, highlighting the innovative nature of the product family and the benefits it could provide to the hospitality industry and the well-being of the housekeeping workforce.

Ready for the market

By the time I left the company, the team had grown to over 30 talented people, the product was well defined and on its way to hit the market. My job here was done and I felt I was ready to start a new challenge. Since then, the product family has been expanded and is currently used by housekeepers all over the world.