Global Gathering
Planner

Streamlining a complex annual event for a rapidly growing team.

Global Gathering is Athlon Studio's annual retreat, bringing 30+ employees together for a team building trip. As the company grew rapidly, organizing it became a coordination challenge the existing spreadsheet-based process simply could not keep up with.

The HR team was managing budgets, itineraries, travel documents, visa requirements, and traveller profiles entirely through manual spreadsheets — a process that created bottlenecks, errors, and constant back-and-forth communication.

The goal was to design a centralized tool that replaced that manual chaos with an intuitive platform built for both the HR administrators coordinating the event and the employees travelling to it.

Rapid growth made the existing process unsustainable.

Three core problems shaped the design scope from the start.

Listening to both sides of the planning equation.

Competitor & Comparator Analysis

An analysis of platforms including Dropbox, Craft, Expedia, and Planning Pod surfaced patterns in document gathering, event planning, and user flow. Platforms with clear step-by-step guidance became the benchmark for what the tool should feel like to use.

User Interviews

Two HR representatives and four employees were interviewed. HR needed automated data collection and centralized document management. Employees wanted itinerary visibility, simplified communication, and fewer interactions with the platform to get what they needed.

User Personas & Journeys

Personas and journey maps brought the research to life. Visualizing the friction points for both the HR coordinator and the travelling employee made the required solutions clear — streamlined document gathering, simplified event planning, and traveller-level personalization.

Concept Development

Three concepts were developed — the Global Optimizer, the Elite Planner, and the MVP Connector. The MVP concept was selected by the client for its short development timeline, simplified dual-sided process for both admins and employees, and focus on reducing software bloat.

A cohesive platform for both admin and traveller.

The final design merged the minimalism of Concept 2 with the warmth of past gathering imagery from Concept 3 — efficient for HR and engaging for employees. Three visual variations were explored before landing on the final direction.

Admin

Traveller

Two complete user flows, end to end.

The final prototype covers both the admin and traveller experiences — from profile creation and document uploads through to itinerary access and event countdowns.

Replacing manual coordination with a purpose-built tool.

The project delivered a working prototype covering both admin and traveller experiences end to end. The platform reduced HR dependency by giving employees direct access to their itineraries, travel documents, and event updates without requiring constant individual outreach.

Working with two distinct user types within a single platform reinforced the importance of designing for fundamentally different mental models in parallel. The decisions that simplified the experience for one group consistently risked adding friction for the other, making the research phase critical to every design call.

The constraint of a four-week timeline with a small team also shaped the outcome positively. The MVP approach selected by the client pushed toward a focused, high-quality feature set rather than a bloated one, which is a principle that carries into every project since.