As temperatures cool down in the city, so does helicopter tourism — the winter months typically bring in less conversions. We worked with HeliNY to give their bookings a boost during the off-season by launching paid social campaigns across social media channels.

With a research-focused approach we ran several different campaigns, analyzing and optimizing along the way to get things just right. The result was a return on conversions easily surpassing the investment, as well as an opportunity for us to learn a lot about HeliNY’s audience and the kind of content that resonates best.

To get an understanding of the existing HeliNY brand and where they wanted it to go, we made sure to get a number of different perspectives. We talked to various internal stakeholders, traveled to local hotels to understand how they choose what experiences to promote, and spoke with customers at the heliport to better understand how the brand was being received by end users.

We learned of HeliNY’s offerings outside of tourism — charters and maintenance — that didn’t seem to have a space of their own, as well as the confusion between their colloquial, adopted name “HeliNY” and their official name “Helicopter Flight Services”.

We collaboratively came to a solution — create a flexible brand system that accounts for the company’s expanding service offerings and the possibility of moving to markets outside of New York. From there, we fine-tuned, tested, and iterated to update the existing brand, conducting frequent surveys to gauge their audience’s preferences. The result was not one logo but a collection, all under the umbrella of the “HFS Company” parent brand.

Armed with the knowledge from our Discovery phase, we set out to design a first-class experience on Heliny.com. To continue gaining insights from end users, we set up micro surveys — small, unobtrusive, one-question surveys that sought to understand what information was missing from the site and what was confusing people.

We heard from users about confusion between tour offerings so we designed an easy-to-read comparison chart. We heard from international tourists that they weren’t always sure where or what some of New York City’s landmarks were and if they would see them — so we designed beautiful and informative interactive maps. Listening to users and solving their problems is what we do!

A big win on this project was the opportunity to greatly improve the website’s booking process. In talking to users and stakeholders we learned that the frontend booking form was hard to use for customers and that the backend involved a lot of unnecessary and time consuming work for employees. Utilizing our knowledge of usability best practices we redesigned the booking flow on the frontend. On the backend, we integrated their system with Salesforce to streamline data collection and processing.

In addition to a sense of satisfaction all around from a job well done, thanks to our micro surveys, we were able to measure quantifiable results that the redesign brought about. Here are just some of those numbers.

The work we did for HeliNY has been featured in the Nielsen Norman Group report, UX Metrics and ROI.

After a successful launch, we continue to partner with HeliNY to bring their brand to life across multiple platforms.

Now who wants to book a helicopter ride?

This project was executed by our US team, formerly known as ETR. The company was acquired by Infinum in 2023.

Two things came up frequently in our discussions. There was the need for the new site design to be inspirational, to be the catalyst for their users to pursue their wanderlust. But inspiration wasn’t the only goal. The site was also a place where users could get travel tips, find the best places to stay, and the best things to do – essentially, it was also a travel tool for world wanderers everywhere.

Once we architected the strategy that we thought would elegantly meet both of these goals in a way that would give T+L users a unique experience, we meticulously mapped out how each of these experiences would change to fit the platform from which the user was interacting with the brand.

What was the experience in the magazine? Was there off-platform content syndication we had to account for in, for example, hotel lobbies? How did that translate digitally? Even though our task was to rebrand T+L from a digital lens, we still had to be in sync with the rebrand in all media to create a consistency. Users should recognize T+L no matter how or where they engaged with the brand.

From there, we worked to create the ideal experience on each digital platform: desktop, tablet, and mobile. We recognized that users engaged with these platforms differently and strived to tailor each experience to its platform while keeping the design and overall user interface consistent.

This project was executed by our US team, formerly known as ETR. The company was acquired by Infinum in 2023.

This project was executed by our US team, formerly known as ETR. The company was acquired by Infinum in 2023.

SkyTrak is a product that sits at the intersection of hardware and software. This gave us a unique opportunity to be a part of a multi-year project that saw the development of a new piece of complex hardware that would then be coupled with the software our team developed.

SkyTrak’s latest hardware innovation, Skytrak+, was released in May of 2023. The new Doppler Radar System delivers useful club data, including: Club Head Speed, Smash Factor, Club Path and Face Angle. Additionally, applying proprietary machine-learning algorithms to that data delivers precision at a level matched only by the highest-end launch monitors on the market. We worked with SkyTrak on the new logo.

Our partners at SkyTrak worked with a hardware developer to create a launch monitor that would rival its competitors in market. It would be more compact, portable, and it would cost much less while retaining the accuracy that other launch monitors boast. They came to us, looking for a partner who could work with them to strategically develop a software solution that would complement the hardware experience. Golfers would be able to practice their shots and the monitor would communicate with the software developed to visualize the data in a way that would be both visually appealing and easily digestible.

The technology behind developing a successful launch monitor was not revolutionary, given that SkyTrak competitors proved to be very accurate. However, with a much more compact piece of hardware that could break the mold in the golfing industry, SkyTrak wanted a software counterpart that was just as innovative. We saw an opportunity here to bring something fresh to the table.

The launch monitor technology could provide a whole wealth of data, but the data was exported in an Excel sheet that had color-coded cells and columns that matched up with rows to discern a specific metric. It made our heads spin simply glancing at it.

The challenge, then, was to visually represent the data in a way that was valuable to the user. That’s the kind of challenge we love to dive into.

Before we could dive into the software component of SkyTrak, we had to understand the hardware component. We spent time with both SkyTrak and the hardware developer researching what golfers actually wanted and valued in the data that they were getting from existing launch monitors.

There was a ton of data available, but not everything was relevant to golfers and, as we discovered, golfers didn’t want to be inundated with all the data. They wanted the metrics they cared about. Through several exploratory sessions and strategy meetings, we took all the ideas each stakeholder had envisioned and smartly whittled them down, based on our user research findings, to what would become the feature set for initial launch.

The SkyTrak box would connect to wifi while simultaneously connecting with the software, which would be available on iPad upon launch. After the hardware was successfully developed, we re-entered the process to develop the software to compliment the box.

We re-visited the user experience that we had set out to establish upon the development of the launch monitor box and made the decision, collectively, that developing in Unity would be an ideal solution with its 3D capabilities and its cross-platform compatibility.

The complexity of SkyTrak meant that we needed a software solution that was robust. Thus, giving SkyTrak the ability to expand upon its platform moving forward, an approach with room for iteration.

The box communicates the collected data with the device, an iPad for launch, the device processes the data to visually depict the output, and then the device communicates with the Cloud to save the user’s data in the user’s account. 

To ensure that we were successful in our endeavors, we worked closely with the hardware developers in Singapore as well as the freelancers in New Jersey and Texas whom we selected from our extensive network to handle the physics engines and 3D play involved in visualizing the data.

We worked with Skytrak to understand the core problems and visualize the key data points that golfers care about.

The involvement of multiple parties meant that we were faced with the challenge of managing the process smoothly with developers, product designers, and key stakeholders in different parts of the world.

Despite this, we were able to navigate these waters successfully by ensuring transparency through thorough communication on a daily basis. 

Each sprint was extensively tested by all parties. We transformed the loading dock in our office into a testing room, setting up a net and taking turns swinging at balls to ensure that our software not only worked seamlessly with the hardware, but that the data collected was validated. We would not have been able to work in such an agile manner had it not been wonderful partners we had, not only in each third party vendor, but in our clients at SkyTrak.

SkyTrak weighs less than two pounds and boasts up to five hours of continuous use, with the free application available in the Apple store for the iPad. Users can take advantage of SkyTrak pretty much anywhere they can hit a golf ball – in the backyard at home, at their buddy’s place, or out on the range. All the results from every shot are visually displayed on the user’s SkyTrak dashboard and saved in their SkyTrak account so that they can track their improvement over time.

One of the things that was most important to SkyTrak was to create a product that could sustain a reasonable price point while remaining sleek and accurate. We were able to accomplish this with the product priced at $2,000, a far cry from its nearest competitor, priced at $8,000. 

The product launched with iPad compatibility, but because we built it in Unity, there are more platforms planned for the future, which will give more golfers the opportunity to use a portable launch monitor at an incredibly competitive price.

Upon launch, the SkyTrak launch monitor was met with a lot of positive buzz. It’s the first launch monitor of its kind, being much more compact than its competitors and available at a fraction of the price.

Not only has it been featured in ESPN’s Holiday Gift Guide and various trade publications, touted as both accurate and affordable, it has been endorsed by renowned golf experts such as Hank Haney and Joe Hallett. It has been such a success that SkyTrak is rapidly adding new features and has already expanded the experience onto different platforms with both PC and Android offerings. Our friends at SkyTrak are super excited about it and so are we.

We’ve helped to create a product that enhances the golf experience and, in partnership with SkyTrak, we’ve helped golfers everywhere improve their game.

SkyTrak has since partnered with 6 of the top golf simulation software companies so users can play simulated golf at home using SkyTrak. To date, SkyTrak has uploaded over 45 million shots to the cloud!

This project was executed by our US team, formerly known as ETR. The company was acquired by Infinum in 2023.

As the Loop Community and Infinum continue their long-term partnership, new features are implemented to meet evolving user needs.