Marriott yUm Mobile App
Creating innovations in dining services for the largest hotel company in the world
The J. W. Marriott Institute, as part of the greater Marriott International corporation, strives to inspire and create hospitality leadership experiences at the University of Utah. As a design specialist, I lead a group of students in designing and innovating dining services across the University.
A bridge between dining services and the diverse needs of students
Marriott yUm strives to connect students to food services through four distinct avenues: Food Ordering, exploring vast food options, program enrollment, and meal credit management.
My role as a designer changed throughout the project timeline. In the beginning, I collected data from the student body regarding the implementation of a centralized dining app, surveys, and student testimonials. Through the concepting phase, I led my team to condense and organize responses, make design decisions, and refine ideas into fully fleshed-out narratives.
About the Client
Marc Brown - Executive Director of the J.W. Marriott, Jr. Institute at the University of Utah
With a background that spans Marriott International, Marc Brown is overseeing the construction of the J.W. Marriott Institute. This physical building, along with the remaining charitable donations by the J.W. Marriott Foundation, will be established to provide students with one-of-a-kind experiences in the hospitality industry.
As of January 2026, the Marriott Institute is confirmed to be integrated into the remaining University of Utah campus, offering expansive dining opportunities, hospitality leadership, and up to 1,400 residential suites. With these expansions, Marc Brown sponsored my team to integrate dining facilities into the rest of the University of Utah's complete dining system.
My team worked around the clock to craft an innovation in dining services to better tie the student body to expansive and, quite simply, confusing services.