IronHack “Add A Feature” Project: Expedia App.
The fourth week at IronHack’s bootcamp has just resulted in the completion of another exciting 4-day sprint. As I have been in love with the hospitality industry for years there is no surprise that my app of choice was Expedia App.
Expedia Group is an American global travel technology company that is a one-stop-shop for hotels, flights, cruises, car rental, and events. The company has a popular website that is widely used around the world. This project, however, was focused entirely on the company’s mobile app for iOS.
PRE-DETERMINED GOALS
The goals of this project were to:
1. Analyze an already existing and highly adopted Expedia app;
2. Incorporate a new feature to Expedia app based on user input;
3. Create a high-fidelity prototype of a native app that reflects the best path forward based on research, iteration, and testing.
SETTING THE SCOPE
I approached the challenge by performing secondary research, conducting 7 interviews and a feature comparison chart.
THE ACTUAL RESEARCH & DISCOVERY
Secondary Research
The secondary research revealed the following:
- 42% of people globally have booked a hotel on a mobile device;
- 70% of last-minute hotel bookings are made on mobile devices;
- 67% of high-income travelers said they would rather spend their money on activities than a nicer hotel room;
- 54% of leisure and 69% of business travelers said that usability issues and limited functionality on mobile are the main reasons for switching to book on another device.
Competitive Feature Comparison
After the secondary research, I proceeded with a competitive feature analysis that revealed that the Expedia App is lacking many functions successfully used by other travel apps (see below). This positioned Expedia in a more generic and traditional quadrant of the market positioning chart. And, according to the data collected, users are looking for more innovative and specialized options for satisfying their travel needs.
Qualitative Data
The data collected during interviews helped to understand the pains the user may experience when using the app. Some insightful quotes collected from interviews:
“When it comes to trying to search for deals on the mobile app, it becomes very arduous and very hard to do so as there is no way to filter the results down based on destination!”
“I don’t like Expedia. They have a really old looking interface.”
“Expedia cares only about business. Hotels that pay Expedia the most will show up first on their search results.”
“I trust real people’s reviews and want to experience authentic places as they are.”
The insights from the interviews showed that:
- Users find the company’s website has an outdated interface;
- Users generally don’t trust the company offers the best deals on the market as they believe the results of Expedia’s search engine prioritizes the advertised options, not the most preferable for the user;
- They mostly use Expedia when money is not an issue, but go to competitors when planning not work-related travels;
- The Expedia app is lacking many necessary features and therefore users still prefer their traditional website.
In addition, throughout the project, I worked on the Value Proposition Chart identifying user’s tasks, pains, gains, and features that the app may deliver to benefit the user.
Last but not least, I analyzed customer’s jobs when going on a trip and found five most common stages of this process: dreaming, research, booking, experiencing and sharing.
Based on the data collected, the Expedia App experiencing the most difficulty in the first stages of traditional travel — dreaming and planning.
The findings were then summed up in the Affinity Map. This tool helped to identify the common trends for our target group.
Top Gains:
- The convenience of booking on the go;
- Saves time;
- Easy to use to accomplish basic tasks.
Top Pains:
- Limited options of the app’s features provide limited functionality;
- Doesn’t allow to preplan vacations, save and share mood boards;
- Missing social an aspect.
I continued with brainstorming ideas. The ideas that would require the lowest effort to incorporate from the business and have the highest impact on the user made it to the Must Haves of the MoSCoW chart.
AHA MOMENT
The first stages of booking travel (dream and research) are the most important to interest the users in a trip and motivate them to utilize the app to arrange it. The majority of our target audience prefers to spend money on experiences, value authenticity of the hotels and destinations, and trust business that offers unique, specialized options (going on a week-long yoga retreat, trying the mountain biking destinations, etc.). Therefore, it would be beneficial for both the business and the users to include the Favorites Tab feature. This would allow users to save their favorite options, create mood boards, share them with others dream about upcoming or most desired vacations.
Jobs To Be Done Framework
Main Job Story:
When users get inspiration from different sources, they want to have easy access to their favorite options in one place and on the go when planning their trips.
New Feature Story:
When Users planning a trip, they want to save their inspirations, favorite hotels and things to do, and share them with travel companions so that they can make a decision on destination easier and at the same time motivate a friend to join as well.
THE SOLUTION
In order to help Users save their inspirations and make decisions on the next travel destinations quicker, I will add a Favorites Tab. Here is the User Flow chart that illustrates the ease of functionality of this tab.
Prototyping
Prototyping started with Lo-Fi wireframes that were tested with users. I realized that the share button was confusing for the user as it was located at the corner of a mood board higher than expected. When preparing Mid-Fi wireframes I made sure to create better alignment and symmetry of the buttons.
After that, Mid-Fi wireframes were tested again. The results showed a very low misclick rate of less than 16% and a 100% completion rate. So, I went on to the Hi-Fi prototype. The prototype shows an example of how you can search for hotels in Athens, Greece and mark them as favorites. All the favorites will automatically be saved by the city in mood boards. Then the user will have an option to share the individual picks or boards in this example with their travel companions.
Hi-Fi Wireframes
Prototype
For the Hi-Fi prototype, I created an atomic design inventory that helped to speed up the process of creating multiple screens that have similar layouts, buttons, icons, and headers.
Success & Failure Metrics
Only the future implementation of the feature will show if this idea was successful. It can be measured by:
- Increase or decrease in usage of the feature;
- Increase or decrease in brand awareness;
- Increase or decrease in booked trips & company’s revenue.
CONCLUSION
It was quite surprising to find so many opportunities for improvement for the Expedia App that proved that even very profitable and successful companies need to evolve and change over time to remain competitive. Creating a Hi-Fi prototype for it seemed very easy and exciting at the beginning of the project. However, there is a whole science that goes behind every screen of an app. From creating active & inactive icons, different headers for each screen, standard colors to making sure it all aligns properly and follows the 8 pt grid guidelines. The most important of them all is the users’ reaction to the designer’s choices. The best designs will make the app’s flow natural and intuitive.
AFTERTHOUGHT
More research is needed to identify all the negative aspects of the app that should be eliminated and opportunities for improvement. So far, Expedia’s competitors offer more features to their audience that might be a reason behind migrating customers from Expedia to other apps. Also, before implementation, Hi-Fi prototypes must be tested and adjusted accordingly if needed.
This is it! I hope you enjoyed this case study!
