How I designed a mobile-first public reservation portal so that FMX's state and local government customers could confidently offer a seamless booking experience for community spaces.
Role: Senior Product Designer
Timeline: Q3 2025
Platforms: Mobile web
Who is FMX?
FMX is a comprehensive CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) serving K-12 schools, higher education institutions, and state and local government organizations.
Project Overview
While FMX's platform excelled at internal facilities management, its scheduling capabilities fell short when it came to public space reservations, a significant revenue stream for government entities.
I led the design of the Community Reservation Portal, an embeddable solution that would allow residents to easily discover and book public spaces like community centers, sports fields, and meeting rooms directly from their local government's website.
The Problem
State and local governments rely on facility rental revenue. However, FMX's existing scheduling product wasn't optimized for public-facing reservations, creating friction in the booking process and potentially leaving revenue on the table.
Key challenges:
No streamlined way for residents to browse available spaces and make reservations
Internal administrative tools lacked the configuration and versatility needed to collect and keep track of reservations
Mobile experience was particularly poor, despite most folks likely completing this task on their phones
Approach
We decided to design and test the public-facing reservation portal first before tackling the administrator setup experience. This allowed us to validate the core value proposition with a reduced scope, confirming that the end-user experience would resonate with both residents and internal staff before investing in complex backend event management tools. If the public portal didn't prove valuable, the administrative work would be irrelevant.
Discovery
I closely collaborated with a Product Manager to sift through known customer pain points within our existing event management tool before diving into any designs. I identified recurring trends and distilled them into defined buckets of work, along with user stories, customer wants & needs and general UX considerations.
Preview of FigJam discovery board
Determining primary "buckets" of work needed to address customer pain points
Breaking down user stories for each "bucket" of work
Initial Prototype
Outcomes
Early learnings
The Community Reservation Portal is currently still in testing with internal stakeholders and a few trusted customers. This initial phase has already validated our overall approach and uncovered critical insights which we hope will shape the future vision of FMX's Event Management system.
Uncovering complexity & next steps
To continue to support facility managers in the state and local government space, our focus needs to shift to the following problem spaces next:
Complex, multi-occurrence events (eg weekly programs, seasonal leagues)
Amenity and equipment configurations across multiple spaces
Varying payment processing and financial reporting requirements
