HOLIDAY SUMMARY
Creating a scalable holiday summary for all markets & products.
Users require a place to review their holiday package before they book. In the current flow, all related holiday information is scattered across multiple parts of the journey, using different components.
I lead the entire design process, from concept to implementation, designing a new global holiday summary. A single component that can be adapted & scaled across different parts of the booking journey, in all markets.
+0.2%
Upward trend in conversion.
+8.1%
Increase in progression.
2.5%
Reduction in pogoing.
Multiple holiday summaries, across multiple products.
Currently we have multiple summaries, showing different levels of information, at different points in the journey, across different markets and products. Each summary needs to be built, designed, optimised & maintained separately, causing a lot of tech & design debt.
Users had a desire to see one clear summary throughout the flow.
Multiple rounds of qualitative insight from different sources, indicated users wanted to see & always went looking for, one clear summary throughout the flow that contained all the relevant information needed for their package. This summary would also need to cater for when ancillaries were added or upgraded.
There was no clear best practice when comparing against competitors.
Looking at multiple direct competitors like Jet2 Holidays, Easyjet, Virgin Holidays, Thomas Cook, all had different approaches to different holiday summaries. I reviewed & collated all the common themes, then split them based on 3 key topics.
Visibility & interaction
Summaries varied from recessive to emphasised across different devices. All tended to encourage customisation earlier in the flow, before switching to a static view later in the funnel.
Summaries on mobile tended to be hidden behind a trigger, whilst on desktop aligned to the right.
Most competitors allowed for customisation earlier in the flow, then limiting that as users progressed.
Summaries often showed ‘high-level’ information earlier, expanding with more detail as users neared payment.
Content
Varying levels of content was wide-spread, with some competitors grouping related information, others only providing specific information on core package elements.
Both high-level and detailed pricing information, often paired with holiday summary content.
Some competitors highlighted elements in a package that are NOT included - perhaps as a way to encourage ancillary uptake?
Unique features
Whilst there were common themes, some summaries had interesting ideas that I thought might be useful for us to explore further down the line.
EasyJet use icons to highlight what core elements are included in package.
Thomas Cook highlight different payment options, minimum pricing & accepted payment types.
Creating a vision for a scalable, adaptable holiday summary.
I wanted to set a vision for exactly what the holiday summary was supposed to be. A clear definition, the role in which we wanted it to play in the booking journey & a north star goal for the experience using it.
Definition
A holiday summary is a concise overview of a holiday package, including key features that are included or added by the customer, with the cost.
What role does it play?
A digital retail agent: Taking requests, making changes and relaying that change back once complete. Then showing how this impacts the total package cost.
North star
To build a single holiday summary, scalable & flexible to all market needs, providing just the right level of information for users at every step of their journey, to give them the confidence to book.
Defining the positives & problems of our existing summaries.
I ran a workshop with our Book & Pay team to evaluate all the different instances in which a summary is shown throughout the package bookflow & uncover what positives & problems we can identify.
Positives: Imagery helps users identify the unit & users tend to appreciate a detailed breakdown on PAX & Pay.
Problems: Lack of consistency, varying levels of content, none of which is displayed in the same way, difficult to understand what is or isn’t included in a package.
Notes: Very important to keep consistency, consider the value of a sticky summary - how easy is it for a user to find a static summary?
Prioritising content & consistency across the flow.
After speaking to various stakeholders within the business to identify all the ‘potential’ type of content we could display, as well as all the ancillaries and products we offer within package, I sorted all available content into buckets of ‘must have’, ‘could have’ & ‘do not need’.
Defining content breakdowns to scale across different scenarios & markets.
The summary will need to be flexible to cater for all types of scenarios, different pieces of content, in different languages. I broke down the holiday summary into content sections, exploring the best, medium & worst case scenarios in which content would be displayed & how we could potentially handle it both from a ‘high-level’ and ‘detailed breakdown’ perspective.
Outstanding questions & validating assumptions.
The main outstanding question was around whether the amount of information present in a summary would change the way a user would behave with it. What would be more valuable: A full-length, detailed summary or a sticky ‘high-level’ summary that updates as users progress? Will seeing changes being reflected in real-time on a summary panel change user behaviour?
I created 3 variants, with varying levels of information, to test with participants across the booking journey.
Full summary
Displaying a 'product level' breakdown of each item in the package in full detail.
Condensed summary
Displaying a more condensed version of each individual item in the package.
Categories summary
Only showing 'category' level information, hiding individual products behind a 'view details' trigger.
Establishing the design principles based on the testing outcomes.
My expectations were that users would land on the Customise page & instantly go to the summary to review what they had in their package; that wasn’t the case. Instead participants used it as a supplementary piece of content:
To quickly review key elements of their package before exploring the page.
As a source of confirmation that any changes they've made to their package, at any stage in the journey, have been properly applied and updated.
This insight enabled me to establish key design principles and considerations.
Iterating on the summary & successfully validating.
Through of mixture of methods like observing heatmaps, session recordings & analysing the quantitative data, I’ve analysed the performance of the holiday summary panel, with progression and behaviour of users across a number of different iterations.
Iteration 1
Progressive summary expansion through the flow.
Retaining the ‘high-level’ summary view on the Customise page, with more thorough detail provided in-page on the Passenger Details & Payment pages.
Outcome: Potentially too much information being displayed in-page on the later pages is stopping users from progressing. Is the level of information overwhelming users rather than helping them at the point of payment?
Iteration 2
Slow reduction in content as users progress.
Allowed users greater control on the Customise page to edit items directly from the summary, then reduced the amount of content further down the funnel to avoid users dropping off.
Outcome: Pendulum has swung the other way, as more users are pogoing between pages trying to find a greater level of information before finalising their booking.
ITERATION 3
A better balance between too much vs. too little.
Scaled back the ‘high-level’ summary in Customise, removing any unnecessary information & providing a greater balance on Passenger Details and Payment, utilising progressive disclosure to reveal more content at the later stages, for those who require it.
Outcome: Greater progression through the flow, maintaining conversion vs. control (trending upwards) and a reduction in pogoing between pages. Validated for approval & build for 1Web.
Upward trend in conversion.
Increase in progression.
Reduction in pogoing.
Planned next steps
There are 2 further variants planned which have not yet been tested, which involve trying to increase ancillary uptake. These go in 2 different directions:
Scaling back the summary even further to place greater emphasis on in-page decision-making & to encourage focus on ancillary components.
Using propensity modelling to draw attention to upgrades users may be more likely to make, within the summary panel, based on party composition, destination, haul, budget & a variety of other factors.
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CONTACT
a.mcmanus@outlook.com
07395 269 866