Expedia Trips
Enhancing travelers' experience with planning and managing their trips
My Role
Lead Designer & Researcher
Team
Lily Y, Patriz D, Tina T
Client
Expedia Group
Timeline
10 Weeks
OVERVIEWExpedia recently introduced the ability to save items to a "Trip" in an effort to simplify and ease the process of trip planning and organization. The Experience Design team was interested in gathering qualitative feedback from travelers to identify areas of confusion and ways to improve the new Trips experience. Our team was approached with the request to conduct usability tests on Expedia's live site.
Background
The overall purpose of the study was to establish baseline usability data for Expedia’s Trips Experience on mobile web. Our goals were as follows:
Evaluate the ease of creating a Trip and saving items
Identify points of friction and confusion in Trip creation and modification
Understand users' expectations for the Trips experience
Objectives
Working with stakeholders to define the scope of the study.
KEY RESEARCH INSIGHTSTo kick off the project, my team connected with the Trips Team at Expedia to understand their usability concerns and what they hope to learn about users' experience with their product. We aligned on the following four research questions to focus on for this study.
How easily and successfully do users discover the:
- Trips tab where favorited items are saved?
- Heart save feature within the search resultsHow easily and successfully do users interact with Trips features?
What obstacles prevent users from creating new Trips and/or finding their existing Trips?
What are users’ goals with using Trips features? How well do these features support these user goals?
Defining relevant characteristics, travel behaviors, and prior experience among target users.
PARTICIPANT RECRUITMENTPartnering with User Research International (URI), we utilized a screening questionnaire to recruit a total of 9 participants who represented a range of traveler profiles across age, gender, occupations, experience using online travel platforms, and prior experience using Expedia.
Working with stakeholders from Expedia, we defined the target study participant as someone who is primarily responsible for planning travel in their household/group and takes at least 2 leisure trips per year.
Designing travel scenarios and key tasks to evaluate usability.
METHODOLOGY
Based on the objectives and research questions, our team decided on a scenario-based, task-oriented approach.
Scenario-Based Tasks
9 Total Participants
Qual & Quant Data
Each scenario was designed to observe how participants navigate and access different features and items within the Trips Experience. While moderating the test, we encouraged participants to think aloud and prompted for further explanation at points of interest.
Our team conducted these tests in-person in the research lab at Expedia HQ (Seattle, WA). We provided a mobile device (iOS or Android) for the participants and utilized an overhead camera system and Zoom's screenshare and recording functionalities to capture participants' interactions with the Trips features on mobile web.
During each session, we collected qualitative data by applying the think-aloud method, as well as quantitative data using Likert scales.
5 main opportunity areas for improving travelers' experience with planning travels through Expedia Trips.
KEY FINDINGS
We analyzed the data we collected through the study, and surfaced 5 key issues with varying levels of severity. We utilized the 4 level scale below to assign severity and priority for each issue.
For the study findings, my team excluded the data from the pilot participant (P0) due to technical issues that prevented them from being able to access the Trips feature on the test device. Hence, the data below will show out of 8 total participants instead of 9.
Note about the Data:
Issue 1: Locating Trips (L2)
Most users had difficulty locating the items that they previously saved to a Trip.
7 out of 8 users did not realize that the suitcase icon [A] represented Trips
6 out of 8 users assumed they would find their saved items in their profile [B]
“I figured I’d find my favorites in the profile area and list of favorites… I didn’t think of going to suitcase and seeing trips there.” – P5
“It took me a minute to interpret the suitcase as my trips since I normally see a shopping cart.” – P7
Issue 2: Comparing saved items (L3)
Users have to toggle back and forth to compare and evaluate their saved items.
8 out of 8 users clicked in and out of the details pages for each of their saved items when trying to select one to book
3 out of 8 users expressed that going back and forth between pages caused friction
“I wonder if there's like a place where you can compare and contrast [saved items] like in a chart. But I doubt that, so I’ll just click on the first one… and I guess I have to do this manually in my head.” – P2
Issue 3: Navigating back to the search results (L2)
The “See all properties” [A] and “See all activities” [B] links on the details pages do not align with users’ expectations.
5 out of 8 users thought these links would take them back to their previous page versus the full list of Stays or Things to Do
“Oh, I went to see all properties. I thought I went back to the ones I saved, but I clearly did not.” – P6
“Not realizing that the link would take me to the main [Things to Do] page would be a little frustrating as far as like, oh, I have to go back in and sort again.” – P3
Issue 4: Viewing locations (L3)
Users have to click into multiple separate maps to determine the location of their saved items.
5 out of 8 users clicked into the map within each details page when comparing items
2 out of 8 users explicitly stated they’d want to see one map with all of their saved items
“It looks like I just have to compare in some manual way. I thought there may be like a map where you could see all your different options.” – P2
Issue 5: Sharing travel plans (L4)
The majority of users would like more options when it comes to sharing their saved Trip and items with other travelers.
5 out of 8 users expressed that they typically share via texting and/or sending links
2 out of 8 users thought that the individual items saved in Trips would be shareable
“I don’t have email addresses for my friends, so I prefer to send texts.” – P3
Proposing product changes to address the identified issues.
DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS
Drawing from the findings outlined above, I prepared a set of recommendations for improving the mobile web Trips experience. Below are mockups I designed to visualize the proposed product changes.
1. Increase the visibility of Trips
2. Introduce new tools and shortcuts that simplify the comparison process
Create a comparison tool that outlines the price, ratings, amenities, etc. of saved items in one place
Add an option to see the next saved item on the list from within the property / activity details page
3. Replace “See all properties” and “See all activities” links with a back button to reduce confusion
4. Allow users to see the locations of all the saved items for their trip in one place
5. Present more sharing options
CONCLUSION📈 The Outcome
My team and I delivered a final report of usability testing findings and presented our design recommendations and solution mockups to Expedia’s Trips team and their greater design org. Our work received very positive feedback and recognition from the director of UX Research and senior design managers in attendance, who shared that the learnings from this project will help inform future improvements for Expedia's mobile web Trips experience.
"Over the past 3 months, I've had the pleasure to work with Marianna, Lily, Patrice, and Tina on a project to evaluate Expedia's Trips Experience.
Both myself and my team were extremely impressed by not just the output of the work, but with how the team went about conducting this project from start to finish. The learnings from this project are going to be very helpful as we continue to explore ways to improve the Trips experience, as well as reinforce our qualitative understanding of the users' needs. Overall, the team has exceeded my expectations from this project, and I have no doubt that they are going to add tremendous value to any design team in the future."
- Rajiv Pennathur, UX Researcher at Expedia Group
💬 Words from the Client
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