Background

ORX Travel is a travel management platform designed to create white-label travel booking websites for travel agencies with their branding and deals from providers like airlines and hotels. This flexibility lets travel agents and employees book flights, hotels, and car rentals through a booking website open to the public, while managing everything within a dashboard. As a UX/Product designer, my role was to enhance these applications for a better user experience.

The travel industry often uses outdated systems called Global Distribution Systems (GDS), which connect travel service providers and travel agencies but have many issues. Our GDS, Sabre, had problems with its hotel content, such as spelling mistakes, poor-quality images, inadequate descriptions, and missing crucial information. Additionally, our original interface had usability issues, making it difficult for users to navigate and find the information they needed. This led to a lack of trust and a poor user experience on our platform.

To fix these issues, we redesigned the hotel booking process from the ground up. We integrated a new hotel API, Zentrumhub, which combines high-quality content from over 60 providers, including Expedia and Hotels.com. We also redesigned the interface to improve content quality, enhance user trust, and provide a seamless booking experience.

Objective

Problem: Outdated API data with spelling mistakes, poor images, and missing information was making our platform less trustworthy and providing a bad user experience. Users were frustrated by the lack of accurate and high-quality content, leading to a decrease in user engagement and satisfaction.

Objective: Redesign the hotel booking flow to integrate enriched API data, improve content quality, and enhance the interface for a better user experience.

Execution

I led our design process using the Double Diamond Method because it provides a clear structure for developing effective solutions. This method guided us through the key phases: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver, ensuring that we thoroughly explored the problem space before converging on the best solutions.

Discovery & Research

We discovered an unusually high abandonment rate within our room selection page for two different user types through analyzing data from Google Analytics, and Hotjar. Our sales team also reported that clients were looking for a product offering multi-source hotel content in a white-label solution.

Our hypotheses were that users were struggling with three things:

1. Content Quality: We suspected that users were dissatisfied with outdated images and descriptions, leading to lower engagement and trust.
2. Lack of Trust: We hypothesized that missing and inaccurate information decreased user confidence, particularly affecting corporate travelers who need precise details.
3. Complex Room Selection: We believed that the overall booking experience was cumbersome and frustrating, especially for vacationers who prefer a simple and intuitive process.

Addressing these specific requirements through detailed surveys was essential to identify the precise pain points and create a user-friendly platform that caters to both corporate travelers and vacationers.

Define

To validate our hypotheses and identify the specific issues affecting our users, we conducted comprehensive surveys targeting two main user groups: corporate travelers and vacationers. We launched surveys on our rate selection page using HotJar. The feedback from these surveys validated our hypotheses on:

1. Content Quality: Users expressed the need for enriched hotel content, emphasizing the importance of accurate descriptions and high-quality images. Leveraging enriched APIs, such as Expedia's content, was identified as a critical solution.
2. User Experience: The surveys revealed that users were struggling with the booking process. Key areas needing refinement included the search results page, hotel information & room selection page, and the order price summary component. Simplifying and enhancing these components would greatly improve user satisfaction.

Objective

Our primary objective was to simplify the room and rate selection process, enhance content quality, and improve the overall booking experience. By addressing these specific areas, we aimed to increase user satisfaction and conversion rates.

Note: While this case study focuses on the room and rate selection section, it's important to mention that the UI for hotel search, the review page, and the payment page were also part of the comprehensive redesign.

Develop & Ideation

I started by conducting a competitive analysis and looking at some of our competitors at athotels.com, Expedia.com, and Airbnb.ca, fueling my ideation process. By analyzing these platforms, I learned:

• Industry Standards: Identified key design patterns and features that are standard in the industry, ensuring our platform meets user expectations.
• User Preferences: Gained insights into user expectations and preferences, allowing us to design a more user-friendly interface.
• Improvement Opportunities: Identified areas where our platform could enhance the user experience by adopting best practices.

I specifically liked these three layouts for hotel rate selection, inspired by UIs from athotels.com, Expedia.com, and trip.com:

Wireframes

Low-fidelity wireframes outlined the new design structure, focusing on layout and flow. These wireframes helped in visualizing the basic framework and identifying potential issues early in the design process.

Next, I created mid-fidelity prototypes to gain feedback from our team and our users. These prototypes helped refine the design based on real user insights and internal feedback.

Design 5 was selected as it provided a clear separation of rates, allowing users to easily compare options without feeling overwhelmed. This design effectively balanced the need for detailed information with a user-friendly layout, addressing the main concerns identified in our research.

I defined edge cases and enhanced quality in high-fidelity prototypes, enabling high-quality iterations to showcase to managers and our team. These prototypes featured enhanced room rate displays, intuitive navigation, and comprehensive filters, ensuring a user-friendly and visually appealing interface.

During this process, I presented multiple high-fidelity designs to management and the development team, iterating based on feedback. The component on the right showcases one of the rate/room selection high-fidelities that didn't make it through because the development of it would have been too complex and didn't meet all our criteria (showcasing rate discounts, rate loyalty status, corporate compliance, etc.).

Deliver and Implementation

Given the project's complexity and short timeframe, meticulous organization was essential. Using our task management app, Linear, I documented all requirements for the hotel content enrichment project, including external requirements from our hotel providers. I broke down tasks documenting the relevant requirements, added links to relevant designs, and ensured thorough documentation so developers clearly understood their responsibilities and could easily translate designs. As SCRUM Master, I coordinated and helped in the delegation of tasks, ensuring clear communication and an efficient workflow.

Afterwards, QA testing on the frontend was conducted by me. During this process, developers provided feedback on designs, which helped improve our structure and refine the final product.

Impact

While the changes have only been live for about a month, we've already achieved a 30% increase in hotel conversion rates. This significant improvement can be attributed to addressing key issues such as outdated content, lack of trust, and complex room selection.

The successful integration of Zentrumhub’s enriched data significantly improved the quality of hotel content on ORX Travel. Users now benefit from high-quality images, detailed descriptions, and accurate room rates. One of the key achievements was designing an interface that seamlessly caters to the distinct needs of admins, vacationers, and corporate users, making it versatile and user-friendly.

This highly structured task management approach was instrumental in achieving these results, emphasizing the importance of a seamless hand-off to developers. We are currently in the review stage with our hotel providers and have received positive feedback, which is incredibly encouraging. I’m excited that we’re launching this within the next couple of weeks. This enhanced booking process is expected to significantly boost user satisfaction and trust, making ORX Travel a more competitive and appealing white-label solution.

Next Steps & Lessons Learned

Given the tight timeline, we couldn't dedicate as much time to user testing as desired. However, we plan to conduct A/B testing and allocate further development time in the future to identify and resolve any bugs, further enhancing the user experience.

Building for multiple different user types is always a balancing act between form and function. This project highlighted the importance of understanding all user types throughout the design process. It also demonstrated the significance of a well-structured developer handoff, with clear documentation and communication being crucial for a smooth transition from design to development.

Reflection

Building for two different user types is always a balancing act between form and function. This project highlighted the importance of understanding all user types throughout the design process. It also demonstrated the significance of a well-structured developer handoff. Clear documentation and communication within the team were crucial for a smooth transition from design to development.

Given the tight timeline, we couldn't dedicate as much time to user testing as I would have liked. However, we plan to conduct thorough user testing in the future to identify and resolve any bugs, further enhancing the user experience. From the feedback we've received from our clients, they’re ecstatic and extremely excited about the new features coming out. Thank you for taking the time to read about our redesign journey. Stay tuned for updates to this blog post in the near future, where I’ll share insights from our user testing phase and any additional improvements we make.