A mobile first design for hotel booking

Proposition

Best Western UK had recognised there was a need for them to update their website booking portal to accommodate the increasing amount of mobile traffic to their site. The legacy website was designed as a static desktop site and research had shown users were struggling to complete booking through a mobile device due to the lacking user experience and loading speed. As a business they had recognised that potential sales were increasingly being lost as users gave up on their booking journeys through the site.

Best Western commissioned our team to explore a new enhanced mobile first design for their hotel booking portal together with a new front end design for a responsive website. Together with the client, we decided upon a strategy of sending mobile traffic towards a simplified search and booking portal designed specifically for customers using a slower connection. This mobile portal would be designed with features specific to mobile use and be code light and quick to load. Along side the new booking portal, we also proposed an enhanced responsive site that would be designed more for a inspirational browsing experience.

A mobile first approach

Previous user research and user profiling suggested that speed of search and easy access to current booking information were prominent user requirements when booking on mobile. User research also highlighted the need for prominent pricing and location information, customer rating and good pictures of hotels were the most important factors for users when selecting and booking a specific hotel.

Business requirements we needed to consider for the new site included promoting reward card and account sign up as well as better ways to capture user data for better analytics and tracking.

Looking at the booking journey

One of the first challenges was to look at the existing booking journey and look to ways enhancing this for users on mobile devices. We kicked of with an initial discovery phase which included researching including competitor analysis , sketching, ideation and many discussions and workshops.
We had 3 initial discovery sprints which involved looking at different parts of the booking journey, these included: