An attempt to impact the User Engagement, Decision Making and Business Metrics by allowing Influencers to share moments from their stay on the Booking.com App!
You got a 7-day holiday from work and are now all set to embark on a trip with your friends.
However, since you do not have a certain location in mind, you begin browsing on various social media applications to gather ideas, but you are unable to get the proper links to the hotels or you are misinformed of the specifics. In another scenario, you might be familiar with a location but are having trouble making a choice based solely on the host’s photographs of the hotel.
How long would it take you to browse through several applications, verify the specifics, and actually discover the right links to the hotel?
Let’s make your work easy. I attempted to introduce a new “Influencer Moment” feature on the Booking.com application.
You can now browse directly on the booking.com app and be re-directed to the hotel booking page, which will help you make an informed decision with some assistance from social proof.
How have I arrived at this solution, and what process did I take to design a final UI? Let’s find out in my case study 👇
Hello🖐 readers,
I recently participated in a “48-hour Product Design Challenge” organized by our mentor, Anudeep Ayyagari.
The theme of this challenge is to work on a given travel app to solve a specific problem . Although it was a standalone project, we had to share resources with our team members, be it the text-style library or components. This challenge not only helped us enhance our product design skills, but it also helped us strengthen our teamwork and collaboration skills.
Our team got the Booking.com application to work on, but each individual had to select their problem statement.
How and why I took Influencer sharing moments with users as my problem statement:
48 hours isn’t really a lot of time when you have to work on multiple parts of the design process, such as researching, ideating, wire framing, prototyping, testing, and then iterating again.
Sure, it can be done, but having the right assistance to help you with necessary insights, along the way can make your work a lot more efficient and allow you to spend time on the more important tasks also while allowing you to ask the questions that you may not have thought about in the first place. ChatGPT is a great AI tool out there, that can help make your workflow more efficient and effective. This case study was one that truly helped me appreciate the value of using AI as an assistive technology in our world today.
With the assistance of ChatGPT and a certain amount of desk research, I decided to go with the Influencer sharing moments with users as it seemed to be solving a crucial problem which could enhance the User Engagement, Decision Making and Business Metrics.
Deadline for this challenge
Lets discuss my problem statement in detail
✏️ 1. Context
✏️ 2. Core Idea
✏️ 3. Impact on business metrics:
Conversion rate: By providing users with more visual and personal content, the likelihood of users booking a stay at a particular property increases.
Customer satisfaction: Allowing users to get a more immersive and authentic sense of what a property is like can help to increase their satisfaction with their decision to stay at the property. It also allows them to see the property through the eyes of someone who is likely to have similar interests and preferences.
Brand loyalty: Providing users with a more personalized and engaging experience can help to increase their loyalty to the Booking.com brand.
Influencer marketing is a popular strategy used by businesses to reach new customers and increase brand awareness. By partnering with social media influencers, businesses can tap into their large and engaged following and gain credibility through their endorsement. In the travel industry, influencers often share their travel experiences and recommendations, making them a valuable resource for potential customers.
Currently booking.com only relying on static images of the property posted by the host lacks the charm of trust, reliability & personal touch.
✏️ 4. Constraints
Privacy: We will need to ensure that we are respecting the privacy of both influencers and users when sharing content.
Legal: There may be legal issues to consider when working with influencers, such as contracts and intellectual property rights.
Technical: We will need to consider the technical aspects of integrating influencer content into the Booking.com platform.
✏️ 5. Assumptions
Influencers will be willing to participate in the program and share content from their stays with booking.com who will verify, assess and upload the content.
It is assumed that users will be interested in seeing authentic videos of stays shared by influencers, and that this content will be more engaging and valuable to them than traditional reviews and ratings and hence users will be more likely to book a stay at a location if they see positive content shared by influencers about that location.
We will be able to identify influencers who are a good fit for the Booking.com brand and target audience.
It is assumed that the necessary technical infrastructure and resources will be in place to support the feature, including the ability to securely store and display videos, and to track and analyze user engagement with the content.
The influencer content will be appropriate for all audiences: It is important to ensure that the influencer content is appropriate for all audiences, as it will be displayed prominently on the home page. This may require reviewing the content before it is published.
The influencer content will not negatively impact the user experience: It is important to ensure that the influencer content does not distract from or interfere with the user’s ability to navigate the website or app. This may require careful design and placement of the content on the home page.
There will be sufficient influencer content to display: This may require working with a large number of influencers or finding ways to encourage influencers to share more content.
The influencer content will be relevant to the search results: It is important to ensure that the influencer content is relevant to the search results being displayed. This may require filtering or sorting the content by location, accommodation type, or other relevant factors.
Secondary Research and Defining Flow
Design Process
To get an idea of how I would implement the Influencer Moment feature, I began to sketch out some quick and very rough wireframes. Based on the above flow, I made an assumption that incorporating the new feature within the home page, search page and property listing page would be most accessible for the user and would also help users notice the differentials in function easily.
MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
Using my the wireframes I created earlier and the user flows I made, I designed a minimum viable product that I could take into user testing and get feedback.
User testing
I was given a list of users from various backgrounds and was allowed to test my design with them. I created a prototype of my design and shared a link with each user. The testing was done remotely, so we had a google meet setup where I could ask the user for feedback on each screen during the process and their thoughts while using the product.
Post Feedback Iteration
Booking.com’s Original Design vs Redesigned Screens
Booking.com Redesigned Prototype Video
🔮Future scope:
This was a time-constrained study and was completed with 48 hours and obviously there is a lot that can be improved and added to the designs.
1. This feature could be integrated with social media platforms and the content can be synced.
2. Create Itineraries based on the influencer favourites and add them to their page.
3. Users can post reviews and comments, and add if the influencer recommendations were helpful which can add more credibility.
📝Takeaways
- Using AI, ChatGPT helped me by providing prompts or questions about user needs and pain points, the product’s goals and objectives.
- Assumptions help us to make informed decisions and move forward with the design process despite uncertainty.
- Validating assumptions is an important part of the design as it helps to ensure that the product or feature being developed is meeting the needs.
Finally, thanks to my mentor, UX Anudeep, and the UXM community for conducting this Product Design Challenge. They created an amazing challenge and were available around the clock to support us. Thank you!!
Thanks for reading! If you’ve got any feedback, I’d love to hear it. You can follow me here or connect with me on LinkedIn.
