Streamlining space scheduling with a $0 in-house booking system

This project began in the summer of 2022, during my residency as an Alan Shepard Resident Consultant at District 3. Post-pandemic, innovation hubs were struggling with hybrid work, and D3 was no exception.

"We need better tech solutions to get people back in the office," was the brief. The room booking system, built by a D3 startup that had since pivoted away from facilities management, was abandoned and broken, so people booked rooms by Slack message, email and sticky note. My first fix was small: a Google Calendar appointment page behind a short URL, so anyone could claim a room without messaging a person.

That fix grew over two years into a complete room management ecosystem. No grand vision drove it; I fixed each frustration as it surfaced, and the fixes compounded.

home to 1400+ startups, dozens of employees, and countless visitors needing flexible meeting spaces

"I just want to book a 15-minute call slot. Why do I have to reserve an entire hour?"

- Charlie Gedeon, former D3er and cofounder of Pragmatics Studio

Charlie wanted a 15-minute slot for a 15-minute call, and the system had no concept of one; how people used the space had drifted away from what V1 assumed.

Fresh from studying interaction design in Paris, I could see V1's problems ran deeper than its technical limitations. The whole flow needed a rethink, from booking to check-in.

I interviewed D3's space team (Ivona Bossert and Andrea Betts) and several startup founders about how they booked rooms and what got in their way.

The challenge was balancing D3's "brash and busy" visual identity with functional interface needs.

bauhaus meets d3's urban energy

Color does one job: status. The traffic lights need zero training; people read them on sight.

Click-and-drag borrows the mental model of calendar apps to pick a precise start and end time, which answers Charlie's frustration with fixed blocks directly. After beta testing I added time dropdowns as a second path to the same action.

The micro-interactions are biophilic. The American Goldfinch, Montreal's official bird, appears only at check-in and check-out to say thank you, a delightful touch that connects people to the local environment and supports the interior design team's biophilia philosophy. It has become D3's pseudo-mascot, but it is used sparingly.

Its chirp was plucked from 10 hours of goldfinch audio by electroacoustics engineer and former D3er Connor Cook. The prompt I gave him was "I wanted it to sound like a checkmark". I think he nailed it!

Version 2 is three interfaces working as one system: room tablets, a booking web app, and an entryway dashboard.

three interfaces, one cohesive experience

The room tablets use large, high-contrast type, so status can be scanned from a distance.

availability timeline with next booking infoorange indicator with prominent action buttonred indicator with early checkout option

Each shows the current booking with precise timing and who made it, single check-in and check-out buttons that appear only when they apply, and a QR code for booking on a phone without an app download. D3's brand graphics take 80% of the screen; the UI stays minimal.

Besides instant feedback and click-and-drag with a dropdown backup, the booking web app tracks your quota in real time with visual feedback on remaining daily bookings, shows each room's details and amenities before you book, and integrates the calendar to show existing bookings and conflicts.

weekly view with real-time availability shown in dark and light blocksroom details and time selectorsinstant quota feedback

The entryway dashboard is fully admin-configurable through a Google Sheets backend.

office map, startup showcase, wifi info, and events in cohesive layoutlive room status indicators updating in real-time

Each interface serves a different context, but they share one set of design principles, so the whole ecosystem feels unified.

It runs on the Google stack, with custom interfaces on top.

Non-technical admins manage the content from the spreadsheet.

content management via google sheets interface

The system supports several paths. A typical booking runs through all three interfaces:

Instant feedback eliminated booking confusion, and clear check-in requirements and timing reduced no-shows. Flexible slots and real-time status improved how the space is used, the screens carry D3's visual identity, and Google Sheets simplified administration.

After launching the beta I ran live user testing sessions. The most significant finding was that some users struggled with precise click-and-drag, hence the time dropdowns in the booking modal. Two ways to do one thing accommodate different preferences and motor abilities.

This project rewarded small fixes over grand plans. The booking hack became a room management ecosystem because I kept listening to user feedback and kept iterating.

The tension between D3's vibrant brand and functional interface needs improved the final design: the screens feel like D3 without costing usability.

A custom build beat the commercial alternatives because I designed it around D3's specific constraints: a nonprofit budget, a Google-stack backend, and 1400+ startup members. None of the six platforms I evaluated could satisfy all three.

D3 still runs the system, and it keeps absorbing small changes as new needs surface. That was the hope when I built it.

Dibs logo drawn by former D3er Katarina Martins - now a fulltime concept artist, illustrator & art educator!