AGODA REFRESH DESIGN
Product Design
Our current Agoda app for years had been successful in driving conversions & growth in standpoint of users coming to Agoda. However the app lacked a consistent design language that tied back into the Agoda brand and drove loyalty & retention. We needed to create a app language that simple, beautiful & highly converting.
ROLE
Drove the strategy in driving the UI refresh with the team to align with business goals & design trends in 2019
Partnered with tech to understand technical constraints & cost to implement.
Partnered with research team to understand if the new refresh drove value and better usability for users when using Agoda.
Team
- DESIGNERS: 2 Sr UX Designers, 2UI Designer
- PRODUCT MANAGER: 1 Product Manager
- DEVELOPERS: 3 iOS, 2 Android, 1 QA
CONTEXT
Why Refresh?
Partnering with the research team we realized that our current app over the years while driving retention due to our pricing strategy lacked brand awareness or a consistent design language that help drive a lovable, beautiful experience for our users. We needed to refresh our app design to represent our user base and create a app that felt modern, usable and lovable.
Below you can see our journey off our app from 2010 to today. Our product was highly focused on driving conversions and along the way made many tradeoffs in creating a beautiful product that is both lovable and highly converting.
WHAT’S OUR GOAL FOR THE REDESIGN?
Research
To be honest, the design teamwas very unsatisfied with the UI of Agoda starting from the fact the product team was very data driven & conversion drive and often made huge tradeoffs with UI & design implementation, . The main objective of the application is to provide an auto-rickshaw ride to users. Comparing with the competitor applications the UI of the Jugnoo was not even in the race to compete. I am 100% sure, that a redesign would help the app grow much better than before.
The Main Objective
The main objective of the application is to provide users a easy, simple, lovable experience that helps them make a booking accommodation on Agoda. Comparing with the competitors applications the UI of Agoda was not even in the race to compete. I am 100% sure, that a redesign would help the app grow much better than before & drive our brand awareness further,
2014
Our iOS from 2014. Our primary product was focused on hotel bookings only.
2016
We did a refresh as phones were better quality and could handle images greater performance.
2017
We did a refresh as Agoda started to expand in ancillary offerings as well and we needed showcase them.
2020
We did a major refresh to the home page as we were building towards a super app.
CHALLENGES & BUSINESS GOALS
Product Design
Partnering with research team we realized there was a demand for ancillary sales thru Agoda. We ran a series of fake door test with our users post booking thru our chat feature to ask if they were interested in room upgrades, dinning options, spa & massage offerings and other ancillary offerings. Based on the fake door test we quickly realized that guest were interested in booking additional trip requirements both thru Agoda.
OUR PRODUCT NORTHSTARS WITH NO CONSISTENCY
At Agoda, each PM partners with a designer and drive velocity, north star designs that align back to there individual KPIs. But as a design we were driving 4 to 5 different direction when it came to our UI language and no one was able to bring it all together till we decided to create a design systems team that helped us create our design systems & drive our app refresh
UI CHALLENGES
Based on our research we needed to understand what was the best way to showcase the ancillary offerings to our users during their booking process. The product & research team had also highlighted there were opportunities to decouple the user from being required to have a booking attached to a ancillary offering. As a UX challenge we had to understand how would we drive higher margins for hotel bookings, while also drive ancillary offerings that were not connected to a previous or current booking. We needed to understand how not to cannibalize our existing bookings or conversions.
UX GOALS
How can you showcase ancillary offerings tied to hotels but yet not cannibalize the guest experience at the hotel & room experience vs ancillary offerings.
If we drive visibility off property offers on the search results page we have to ensure showcasing offers help users learn more about the property & hence have more confident in staying the property as they feel they could have a well rounded experience.
BUSINESS GOALS
Acceptance criteria
Localize and learn which offerings based on personalization experience of user to ensure highest conversion rate
Rationale
Increase margins for hotels & Agoda on each booking
Tracking
Users upgrading room bookings with the addition of ancillary add ons
Measuring click thru rate & engagement with room offers which offered ancillary offerings.
WHAT ARE SOLVING FOR?
RESEARCH PLAN
Partnering with research team we realized there was a demand for ancillary sales thru Agoda. We ran a series of fake door test with our users post booking thru our chat feature to ask if they were interested in room upgrades, dinning options, spa & massage offerings and other ancillary offerings. Based on the fake door test we quickly realized that guest were interested in booking additional trip requirements both thru Agoda.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
We partnered with the research team to speak to hotel managers & supply managers to understand how Agoda help sell their ancillary offerings on our platform and connect with guest thru out their stay at the property. We needed to understand where during the booking process users would be most enticed to book on our platform.
- Understand where during the booking process do users book ancillary offerings
- Qualitative and quantitative research
- Competitive Analysis
- Prioritize our roadmap based key research
RESEARCH PLAN
Setup a time to go meet with hotel partners to understand what the value of ancillary offerings is to their bottom line and guest experience. Working with hotels & talking to guest we want to understand whats the best time to position offerings to guest to drive maximum value and high conversions.
- Interview hotels to understand there supply & how they would want to sell on Agoda
- Speak to hotel guest to understand where in the process of accommodation bookings do they consider booking ancillary offers
- Prioritize MVP roadmap
- Competitive Analysis
WHO WILL BE OUR USERS?
PERSONAS
PRE PLANNER & FAMILY TRAVELER
We found that a key sector in folks making hotel bookings followed it up with planning their entire trip within days to finalize tours, attractions & transport. It was important for us to capitalize on these travelers and have them buy on Agoda.
SOLO & ON THE GO TRAVELER
We also found their was a large number of solo travelers who booked ancillary offers on the go or days before their visit or on arrival. We needed to find ways to communicate to guest during pre trip, in-trip to get them to shop on Agoda for there trip requirements.
INDUSTRY BENCHMARKING
HOTEL INDUSTRY
Based on our research we discovered there were 4 primary competitors in the space. WIth the research team we partnered to understand what each competitor was doing well & what users liked about there experience on each platform. We also did research where in the user’s booking journey did these competitors come into play.
AIRBNB
Airbnb has done a great job in providing both accommodation bookings & trip experiences as one stop shop. This was a great competitor to analyze measure our platform.
TRIP.COM
Trip has a large following of group bookers who both utilize accommodation bookings & reserving experiences on their platform.
TRAVELOKA
Klook quickly has grown to one the key platforms in the space who has created a seem less experience to book experiences all over the world with trusted host & tour guides.
EXPEDIA
Get your guide is one the key platforms in the space who has created a seem less experience to book experiences all over the world with trusted host & tour guides.
RESEARCH OUTCOMES
WHAT WE DISCOVERED?
We looked at how services like Facebook and Instagram have set the behavior in the way user consumes travel content visually. Agoda accommodations teams noticed the majority of their users who are searching and discovering properties where not optimally gaining an experience that let them compare properties to make a choice easily that met their hospitality requirements. They wanted to easily compare properties during the search and discovery page without ping pong between property detail pages which could help them save time and match them with their accommodation requirements faster and more efficiently.
KEY INSIGHTS
Based on our research it clear that hotels were interested in selling there ancillary offerings on our platform and wanted to understand how we would position the grouping of hotel bookings & offerings to guest. They wanted to see which model was more beneficial to them and if the margin cost made sense in the long run.
KEY FINDINGS
- Demand for ancillary sales
- Hotels were looking ways to increase margins via Agoda
- Non hotel suppliers were also looking to sell on Agoda
- Hotels were looking to sell room upgrades, transportation, hotel spa packages before arrival
- Hotels wanted to communicate with guest during pre-tip to up sell there services & offerings
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
Based on research insights it was important for us to present to our stakeholders prior data that validated the booker needs and how it would correlate into experiments moving forward.
VALIDATE PRIMARY NEEDS
Acceptance criteria
Do we drive more value for properties & Agoda while increasing visits to Agoda per year per user
Rationale
Do hotels see this as added value to provide us better pricing on ancillary offerings vs directly selling to the consumers
Tracking
Track to see how many users actually add ancillary offers to there bookings and also see how. many users engage with email offers
VALIDATE PROPOSITON
Based on key learnings and insights it was very crucial to create a experience that didn’t create more friction, confusion during the booking process of accommodation but instead provide more value proposition for bookers to book there all inclusive trip at once.
Increase Margins
Increase percentage of bookings to add ancillary offerings to the total booking price
Trust
Provide a channel of communication that drives trust between users & properties to sell the on reliable ancillary offerings
Build a inventory & scale
Build a inventory to drive non agoda bookers to book ancillary offerings on our platform regardless where they booked there accommodations
DESIGN SYSTEMS LANGUAGE
Product Design
Partnering with research team we realized there was a demand for ancillary sales thru Agoda. We ran a series of fake door test with our users post booking thru our chat feature to ask if they were interested in room upgrades, dinning options, spa & massage offerings and other ancillary offerings.
SOLUTIONS
FINAL OUTCOMES
Multiple rounds of design iteration, testing with users, presenting to stakeholders allowed us to iterate on each component and establish the solution that was scalable, highly converting & user friendly.Multiple rounds of design iteration, testing with users, presenting to stakeholders allowed us to iterate on each component and establish the solution that was scalable, highly converting & user friendly.Multiple rounds of design iteration, testing with users, presenting to stakeholders allowed us to iterate on each component and establish the solution that was scalable, highly converting & user friendly.
Home Page
Our iOS from 2014. Our primary product was focused on hotel bookings only.
Search Page
We did a refresh as phones were better quality and could handle images greater performance.
Property Page
We did a refresh as Agoda started to expand in ancillary offerings as well and we needed showcase them.
Booking Page
We did a major refresh to the home page as we were building towards a super app.
Filters
Our iOS from 2014. Our primary product was focused on hotel bookings only.
My Profile
We did a refresh as phones were better quality and could handle images greater performance.
My Bookings
We did a refresh as Agoda started to expand in ancillary offerings as well and we needed showcase them.
Favorites
We did a major refresh to the home page as we were building towards a super app.
Filters
Our iOS from 2014. Our primary product was focused on hotel bookings only.
My Profile
We did a refresh as phones were better quality and could handle images greater performance.
My Bookings
We did a refresh as Agoda started to expand in ancillary offerings as well and we needed showcase them.
Favorites
We did a major refresh to the home page as we were building towards a super app.
BRANDING SPACE
ACCOMMODATE BUSINESSES
Below are the final layouts we produced and the landing page for users who were redirected from chat or landed directly marketing channels to only book ancillary offers. The mobile and web layouts allowed both hotels & suppliers to target guest who booked on Agoda or other platforms to help drive increase of revenue and access to there inventory to a larger audience.
HOME PAGE
ACCOMMODATE BUSINESSES
Below are the final layouts we produced and the landing page for users who were redirected from chat or landed directly marketing channels to only book ancillary offers. The mobile and web layouts allowed both hotels & suppliers to target guest who booked on Agoda or other platforms to help drive increase of revenue and access to there inventory to a larger audience.
OLD DESIGN
https://devengrover.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Splash.mov
NEW DESIGN
https://devengrover.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Home-SplashScreen.mov
HOTEL TO FLIGHTS
ACCOMMODATE BUSINESSES
Below are the final layouts we produced and the landing page for users who were redirected from chat or landed directly marketing channels to only book ancillary offers. The mobile and web layouts allowed both hotels & suppliers to target guest who booked on Agoda or other platforms to help drive increase of revenue and access to there inventory to a larger audience.
OLD DESIGN
NEW DESIGN
https://devengrover.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Home-Tab.mov
SEARCH BOX ENTRY
ACCOMMODATE BUSINESSES
Below are the final layouts we produced and the landing page for users who were redirected from chat or landed directly marketing channels to only book ancillary offers. The mobile and web layouts allowed both hotels & suppliers to target guest who booked on Agoda or other platforms to help drive increase of revenue and access to there inventory to a larger audience.
OLD DESIGN
NEW DESIGN
https://devengrover.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Home-Panel-Expand.mov
SEARCH TO PROPERTY TRANSITION
ACCOMMODATE BUSINESSES
Below are the final layouts we produced and the landing page for users who were redirected from chat or landed directly marketing channels to only book ancillary offers. The mobile and web layouts allowed both hotels & suppliers to target guest who booked on Agoda or other platforms to help drive increase of revenue and access to there inventory to a larger audience.
OLD DESIGN
NEW DESIGN
https://devengrover.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/parent-to-child-animation.mov
PROPERTY LIGHTBOX ANIMATION
ACCOMMODATE BUSINESSES
Below are the final layouts we produced and the landing page for users who were redirected from chat or landed directly marketing channels to only book ancillary offers. The mobile and web layouts allowed both hotels & suppliers to target guest who booked on Agoda or other platforms to help drive increase of revenue and access to there inventory to a larger audience.
OLD DESIGN
NEW DESIGN
PROPERTY LIGHTBOX ANIMATION
ACCOMMODATE BUSINESSES
Below are the final layouts we produced and the landing page for users who were redirected from chat or landed directly marketing channels to only book ancillary offers. The mobile and web layouts allowed both hotels & suppliers to target guest who booked on Agoda or other platforms to help drive increase of revenue and access to there inventory to a larger audience.
OLD DESIGN
https://devengrover.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Loading-V3.mov