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Discover the user’s goals and context in relation to the site and application
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Evaluate user process and priorities for all aspects of booking a trip
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Identify main causes for significant pain points in booking a trip online
Goals
Methodology
I determined that user interviews were the most appropriate way to gather re-design research. This is because interviews allowed for an in-depth look at users contexts for booking travel, their goals, and priorities.
Three users participated in the interviews:
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Each interview was moderated by a user researcher
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All participants were asked questions off of the same research guide
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Each interview took place in the same location (a relatively closed-off room in a home with minimal distractions)
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Each interview was recorded (with permissions from the participants)
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Each session was roughly 20 minutes long
Hypothesis and Results
Hypothesis One
Users value the ability to search and narrow by price to match an existing budget
Validated
All three participants said the ability to search by price was extremely important, except for in the instance of business travel.
Hypothesis Two
Users generally book flights further in advance than hotels
Validated
All three participants stated they book flights before even checking for hotels.
Hypothesis Five
Some users may be searching for a destination as well as a hotel
Not Validated
The data from the interviews suggests that users have a well formed idea of where they would like to stay by the time they are ready to search for and book a hotel. They are much more likely to look for destinations while looking for flights.
Hypothesis Four
Mobile device applications are used to access different information than what users want to interact with on a desktop/website
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Validated
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The participants from the interviews displayed a pattern of using the websites on desktops to do the heavyweight research and booking, and generally just used mobile to access information about bookings while they were in travel status.
Hypothesis Three
Users browses multiple options for hotels before deciding on one hotel to book
Validated
All three participants included searching through many hotel options to understand what as available before deciding to book.
Research Findings
Finding: User are not sure they are “Getting a good deal”
Many users do research for hotel options outside of the Marriott website.
Users referenced options such as Expedia or Bookings.com for finding hotels. They prefer these sites for several reasons:
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They can search by criteria that matters to them, such as price • They can see multiple competing options from different hotels
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They are able to see average customer reviews
In response to being asked about using the Marriott website, one participant stated: "it's not the place I would go to to find the most reasonable [price-wise] place to say"
Finding: User do more work for flights than hotels
All 3 users stated that they go directly to multiple airline websites to do manual searches for available flights, which is the opposite pattern from how users search for hotel.
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The participants generally had fewer sets of criteria for flights, mainly just focusing on price and availability
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Two of the participants suggested that although there is quite some difference between airlines and flights, there isn’t the right kind of comparison tool available
When asked about the process they go though for booking a flight, one user stated:
"I put too much thought into considering all the possible options but don't have an easy way to compare all of them at once"
Finding: User booking habits are contingent on travel circumstances
Specifically, two of the three participants stated drastically different habits for booking personal compared to work travel.
Finding: Users do not find the Marriott site memorable
All three users stated that they had visited the Marriott site, but could not remember anything specific about it
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One of the participants stated that she had been to the website earlier that week, but that she could not recall anything about it
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Another participant stated that he uses the website regularly for booking travel hotels, but couldn’t remember anything in particular about the site or experience
Finding: Marriott has brand power and trust
All three users stated that they had stayed in Marriott hotels and found the experience enjoyable
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They believed the hotels to be clean and well kept
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They believed the hotel rooms to be generally reasonably priced
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Two users stated that they had previously booked hotels based on the recognizable brand name
Trip Booking Process
This is the process identified based off of the user research completed.
Pick a city to travel to
Users started by picking a destination city to travel to
Research And Book Flight Options
Users generally had a preferred airline site they visited, and if not went through aggregation sites such as Google flights
Research Potential Hotel Locations
Before booking a hotel users voiced a tendency to find a preferred location within the destination city to stay.
Research Potential Hotel Locations and Book Hotel
Before booking a hotel users voiced a tendency to find a preferred location within the destination city to stay.