expedia | 2024
Role
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Design
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Research
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Conceptualization
Team
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Designer
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Researcher
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Product Manager
Timeline
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6 months to research and develop redesign of trips page
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January 2024 - June 2024
Background
What is Expedia trip planning?
The Expedia app's trips page helps you manage your travel plans by displaying upcoming trips, flight and hotel details, and car rentals. It offers easy access to itineraries, check-in options, and personalized activity recommendations for your destination.
Problem Breakdown
Group Travel: How to plan a vacation with a fun process
Planning trips for multiple people adds complexity, especially when coordinating preferences, schedules, and budgets. While Expedia works well for solo planning, it lacks features for smooth and enjoyable group collaboration, making the process stressful and time-consuming.
Destination Discovery: Overwhelmed and confused by information overload
Travelers often feel overwhelmed by the vast amount of information available when trying to choose a dream destination, leading to the loss of their unique preferences and requirements.
Post-Booking Support: An adaptive experience to personalize your trip
Travelers often struggle to get timely, personalized guidance after booking. Without an adaptive experience for each phase of their trip, from pre-trip prep to last-minute concerns, they face uncertainty and added stress.
Understanding the User and Pain Points
Primary research utilizing existing Expedia reports, surveys, and interviews
Expedia’s main users, aged 30-45, typically plan group trips for 3-4 people, with a growing trend among younger travelers prioritizing sustainability. Mobile booking has been on the rise since 2022, underscoring the demand for a seamless mobile experience.
Many users find current tools like Google Docs inefficient for organizing group travel, pointing to the need for better in-app collaboration. Interviews highlighted challenges in group planning and the desire for more personalized guidance throughout the travel process.
Problem Statement
Designing a Blueprint
Effortless Group Journeys: Expedia’s Seamless Trip Planning Solution
This mid-fidelity prototype enhances Expedia's group travel experience by introducing tools for real-time collaboration, itinerary management, and personalized preferences. Features like in-app chat, trip comparison, and a centralized itinerary streamline coordination, allowing users to easily organize flights, accommodations, and activities for multiple people.
By addressing complexities like budget constraints and scheduling conflicts, the design simplifies group planning, reducing stress and making the process smoother and more efficient.
Back to the Drawing Board
User Testing Insights: Refining Group Travel with Feedback-Driven Design
User testing of the mid-fidelity prototype revealed a need for better map functionality, improved trip detail features like weather and transportation info, and more intuitive flight comparison tools. Users also requested enhanced group communication tools, such as in-app messaging and clearer collaboration options, while navigation and usability improvements were highlighted to streamline the planning process.
These insights underscore the importance of flexibility and ease of use in making group trip planning more efficient and enjoyable.
Final Outcome
Streamlined Group Travel: Plan, Communicate, Enjoy
The new trips page simplifies group travel planning by organizing key trip details and integrating a real-time messaging feature for seamless collaboration. Group members can easily coordinate schedules, share preferences, and vote on plans within the app, reducing stress and making the planning process more enjoyable. This design ensures everyone stays informed and involved, turning group trips into a smoother, more fun experience.
Smart Trip Planning: Simplified, Organized, and Collaborative
The newly redesigned trips layout tackles information overload by organizing essential trip details in a clear, user-friendly format. With a built-in comparison tool for easy decision-making and a messaging feature for group communication, travelers can effortlessly plan and collaborate, staying focused on their unique preferences without feeling overwhelmed by too much information.
Travel Smarter: Personalized Post-Booking Support
The redesigned trips transforms post-booking planning into a seamless experience. It offers redesigned itinerary cards that keep important details front and center, and includes recommended activities, hotels, and flights for easy planning adjustments. With features to save and comment on items, it encourages collaboration among group members and ensures personalized, timely guidance throughout every phase of the trip. This adaptive design eliminates uncertainty, creating a stress-free and enjoyable travel experience.
Ready, Set, Vacation!
Crafting the Ultimate Travel Companion
This redesign tackled major pain points in group travel and post-booking support by introducing a more organized, user-friendly design. Key features like streamlined itineraries, collaborative messaging, and comparison tools directly address users' struggles with coordination and decision-making. The redesigned cards and personalized recommendations help users stay organized and informed, reducing stress.
Ultimately, the new design improves efficiency and enhances the overall travel experience by making planning and trip management easier and more enjoyable.
Check out my other work!
Cisco Meraki
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