Let’s explore, iterate, refine, and get customer feedback on new functionality and a refreshed visual system, before we port an entire site to a new technology platform.
A “labs” test area, handling up to 10 percent of site traffic, helped the organization explore and test new funtionality that could apply to multiple travel brands. For CheapTickets Labs, paths for hotel search and hotel-reviews browsing were the first iteration. Later, a more sensible unified hotel path would handle users searching a specific destination with dates (“Chicago, Dec 13-17”) as well as multiple criteria “Mexico, kid-friendly, beach hotels, 3 stars and up”). The reviews path focused on keyword content from customer reviews; both paths featured keyword search and filtering.
The refreshed look and feel aligned more to marketing research and consumer input: it was more informal, friendly, and fun, and it featured color, tone and elements familiar to low-cost retail. The new visual system gave marketing designers more flexibility and better elements to work with – lively typography, fun “snapshot” images, and retail bursts and ribbons. Even process elements, such as alerts and errors, were less jarring, more friendly.
Orbitz Worldwide · 2008
Creative direction: Melissa Moore, Andrew Day · Design direction: Andrew Day · Design: Andrew Day, George Gabriel, Colleen Milani, Marie Lietz · Information architecture: Frank Gruger, Nick Iozzo, Sarah Grubb · Engineering: Matt Haddock, Michael Mattiacci, Adam Goldstein, et al. · Photography: stock
New functionality
Enhanced look and feelSearching by customer reviews of hotels
Hotel review searches can accept specific or regional destinations, keywords, and themes (descoped).
Hotel reviews search results put customer content at the forefront.
Reviews at hotel-details level can be expanded to show all criteria.
Hotel keyword search, saved searches, results filtering, destination landing pages
Dated hotel search included options to select from favorite hotels or past searches. [Descoped]
Hotel search results have content in relevant tabs, and top/side filters remove unnecessary results.
Destination landing pages leverage filtering and reviews content. [Unused]
Enhanced look and feel
Top of pageResponding to research and consumer input
The visual toolkit provided to marketing designers includes flexible standards for merchandising graphics, editorial images, and advertising. These visual elements are adaptable to different parts of the site and help make “cheap” fun, friendly, and informal.
And introductory lightbox panel, at the threshold between Classic/Labs sites, touches on benefits and invites input.
Interaction pattern standards for new components are flexible and fully specified with dimensioning and behaviors.
Feature and process icons are consistent, friendly, and compatible with low-cost marketing elements like coupons and bursts.