UX Research: Online Survey creation and analysis of results

Intro

This Online Survey project is the second section, out of four, that will form the Research Block of my UX Case Study. The process has been guided and developed during my studies at the UX Design Institute.

The study aims at designing a hotel booking system that is aligned with users’ needs while following the design thinking process. High-frequency use cases have been taken into account throughout. The main purpose is to declutter the interface while reducing the number of steps. The outcome is to prototype a booking system that sparks joy in the eyes of users. Such products facilitate experiences smoothly and enjoyably.

The data gathered from this online survey will facilitate more informed design decisions later on, as well as allowing me to practice analysing survey data.

Objectives:

• Learning how to create and analyze an Online survey.
• Combining structured and unstructured types of questions to gather quantitative and qualitative data.
• Understanding the general behaviour of users when trying to book an accommodation, their particular goals, whether anything is preventing them from doing so, and what other features they would like to see.

The Survey

For this project, an online survey needed to be performed in order to gather quantitative and qualitative data from users.

The goal was to keep the survey concise and direct. Overall the focus was to make it easy for people to answer.

I tried to avoid a large number of questions and to carefully think of the language to use. With this purpose in mind, I started drafting questions aimed at understanding how people interact with online booking accommodation engines.

The result was a combination of eight structured and unstructured questions. The final responses were nineteen. The tool selected was Google Forms.

The questions, and their structure on how to present them, were first drafted by hand. Afterward, they have been added to the online survey form to then be distributed.

The focus

Context: this refers to the user’s background and/or scenario while accessing the service or software. Contextual information is important for understanding “who” the users are.

Behavior: if context was the “who” , behavioral information is “how” users interact with the service or software. It reflects how users interact with the product in order to complete their goals.

Goals: these observations define what task/s the user is trying to achieve. The user might start with one goal in mind, but might have to perform several tasks inside tasks to fulfill their ultimate goals. These can be considered the “what” in the observations.

For this online survey, I focused the first four questions into picturing the context of users, the next two questions on behavior, and the final two on their goals. I made use of my network, as well as social media, to gather responses.

The results’ structure

Context

Q1: How do you usually browse for hotels/accommodations?

Aims: understanding what type of devices users prefer while browsing for hotel/accommodations. The data obtained could be valuable for validating the focus path of this case study.

Observations: Users prefer the use of a PC to view their accommodation’s results on a Desktop view format. This could be due to the fact computers have a bigger screen, allowing the possibility for the customer journey to be shorter and smoother. The second most used device is a smartphone. While the use of a tablet has been selected only once.

Q2: How often do you use accommodation websites/apps?

Aims: gathering an overview of how often users search for accommodations. This question will generate a vision of users’ frequency of travel, and based on the results, how reliable the outcomes of this study are (high frequency of booking accommodations=reliable the data).

Observations: Observing the results, it can be said that our target group travels an average of 1 to 4 times a year. The highest percentage is that of users traveling 1–2 times a year with almost 58%, followed by an often frequency of every 2–3 months with 37% of selections (rounded-up). The smallest group of 5% said to book accommodations every month.

Q3: What is your go-to/favorite accommodation website/app?

Aims: spott what are the competitors to look for, based on users’ most-used websites/apps when it comes to booking accommodations.

Observations: Users confirm to prefer an aggregator such as Booking.com for booking accommodations. This last one has been selected a total of 12 times, usually paired with Airbnb (probably for comparison). Google Hotels and Hotels.com have been mentioned only once. While some users do not have a preference, or make decisions based on their budget.

Q4: When is the last time you made a reservation through an accommodation website/app?

Aims: this question serves at spotting how recently respondents had interacted last with an accommodation website/app.

Observations: This section shows that the participants of this survey have actively interacted with an accommodation website/app mostly within the last 3 months. The second largest group had responded to have had made their last reservation over 12 months ago. These results could be influenced by the current pandemic.

Behavior

Q5: Why did you visit the accommodation website/app that day? What were you trying to do?

Aims: with this question we enter the behavioral part of this survey. These results are essential to creating a picture of users’ motivations/needs to engage with accommodation websites/apps.

Observations: we can deduct that most people approach an accommodation website/app with the purpose of finding a suitable place to stay prior to their trips. Most respondents pointed at leisure reasons for traveling. Comparing prices and reviews, locations and photos of the accommodation seemed of value.

Q6: Were you able to complete your task/booking successfully? If not, what went wrong?

Aims: connected to the previous question (Q5), respondents are given the opportunity to share their thoughts on how the accomplishment of the task went.

Observations: A large number of participants (13 over 19 respondents) confirms to have accomplished their tasks successfully. Some users displayed discomfort, not in the user experience, but in the quality of the service received.

Goals

Q7: What is important for you when you choosing an accommodation?

Aims: these results will facilitate the building of the future prototype as a result of this study case. The answers will serve as guidelines on which features to consider the most while designing.

Observations: Respondents of the survey selected Price/Value and Location as the most important aspects to consider while making a reservation. Photos of the accommodation’s rooms and facilities come as second most selected (with 17 and 13 picks respectively). A Smooth booking process is also highly appreciated (13 picks).

Q8: What would you change about the accommodation website/app? What improvements would you make?

Aims: with this last question, respondents are given the choice to comment on what could be done better when it comes to the UX/UI of their recently engaged accommodation website/app. Highly valuable data for this case study.

Observations: Interesting to observe that participants gave more importance to negative/neutral aspects of their experience, in comparison to positive ones. Among the negative observations, it was mentioned how cluttered UI can damage the experience, as well as unclear given information. Clearness and attractiveness in design are seen as positive.

Hopefully these insights can be of any help to anyone out there reading this article! This is the second part, out of four, of my UX Research Block. Project 01: Competitive Benchmark can be found on my profile. I will be posting the remaining two projects of this block soon. Wishing everybody a great start of the year! Cheers ✨