Expedia- Content Strategy

Project with Mengdi Mi, Yihan Lin, & Yingjie Shen

Role: UX Researcher and Content Strategist

Purpose: To improve the efficiency of the booking process by helping users navigate search listings with ease, thus resulting in a higher booking rate.

When people are trying to book a vacation rental on Expedia’s website, they need to quickly find the best property that meets their needs. Users are currently OVERLOADED with a large quantity of information that appears busy & distracting based on the visual hierarchy of the page.

Problem to Solve: People don’t think of Expedia for vacation or short-term rentals.

• Search results show more hotels than vacation rentals. Creates customer confusion.

• Website is text heavy and feels congested visually.

Expedia Audience

Percentage of Women/Men: 60/40%

Percentage 25-54 Years of Age: 61%

Percentage with HHI $75K+: 61%

People use Expedia to book hotels or other travel accommodations for either business or leisure.

• Factors that may determine the length of their stay:

  • Type of property

  • Location

  • Purpose of travel

  • Frequency of travel

User Persona

Here are the problems (result of a content audit):

• Visual hierarchy of page modules isn’t clear

• ‘Sort & Filter’ module is complex & lengthy

• Font size of the price is distracting

• Listing thumbnails are too small & don’t draw users in

• Outdated design- transactional, stale, & unappealing to younger users

Opportunity Statement

My team will improve the efficiency of the booking process by inviting users to explore an improved search results page, thus resulting in user confidence/assurance and lead to a higher booking rate.

If Expedia simplifies and transfers the content of ‘Sort & Filter’ module into a button that opens into a pop-up, then users can make decisions confidently and quickly because the redesign reduces the reading load by using an image-centric design to focus on search results.

Current UI of Expedia Search Results

Modified UI of Expedia Search Results

Current UI for Filters from Search Results

Modified UI for Filters (Pop Up from Button)

How to Measure Success?

(Metrics, Sample Size and Duration)

Primary Metric:

• Time: Less time on the booking task

• Tracking Metrics:

  • Efficiency: Higher percentage with the first selection being the final selection

  • # of Clicks on Filters: More use of filters

  • # of Return Visits: Fewer return visits of the searching results page 

  • Conversion Rates: Increase or Neutral

    
    

• Sample Size: 27,066 total visitors

  • = 13,533 (Sample Size per Variation) X 2 (Variations)

• Duration: 6 days= 27,066 / 5,000 (estimated daily pageviews)

Implementation Plan

Benefits of the Solution to Expedia

• Attract and acquire new customers to Expedia

• Enhance business and maximize revenue opportunities 

• Increase daily sales and sales volume

• Improve customer loyalty

• Increase customer engagement and retention

• Lower development and customer support costs 

• Increase conversion rate and Return on Investment (ROI)

• Decrease bounce rate

Benefits of the Solution to Customers

• Provide a better user experience through a more user-friendly page due to the visual improvements

• Decrease user’s search time when finding an accommodation

• Increase overall customer satisfaction

• Help users to reach the content they need, efficiently 

Summary

Our solution will help users succinctly make their decisions and fulfill their needs in a more efficient way because of our proposed UI improvements thus decreasing the time in completing a task.

• The redesigned page will improve the overall user experience, which makes the digital interaction simple, fluid, intuitive and efficient

• Visual hierarchy is intrinsic to user interface design, which makes the information accessible and interesting to users 

• Expedia having a good UI ensures a competitive advantage in an increasingly competitive and evolving environment