Online Hotel Booking Application
By
Chayapathi,
Bachelor’s of Design,
IIT Guwahati.
Overview
Start Introduction Design process Prototypes Develop Deliver
Introduction - Background
Online hotel booking gave a new dimension for the regular hotel booking system in
India and the process.
Everyone has unique expectations when it comes to booking a hotel online, now
online booking facilitates and gives the user with an opportunity to reach their
expectation. It can be an awesome experience, as long as the process isn’t too
frustrating.
In this project I’m going to focused majorly on the betterment of user experience
through a process.
Research
Analyze &
Ideate
Prototype
Design Process
Research
Contextual
Inquiries &
Survey
Competitive
Analysis
Stakeholder
Interview
Stakeholder interviews
It is a fact that there are many players in the market for online hotel bookings and
there are many stakeholders involved in the system who are involved with the
process and system.
My main objective from the stakeholder interview is to find out the target audience
groups and their needs, have taken the interviews of three operations managers from
one of the top among the players in the market Rooms.
Operation managers are the SPOC for the guest. Each operations team consists of
one CX, one cluster manager and one operations manager where operation manager
leads the team, they will be handling the guests right from the booking to the checkout
and in the meantime they collects feedback from the guests about the stay and
booking experience.
Stakeholder interviews
The majority of
users are from
corporate sector,
Tourism Sector and
Events sector.
Competitive Analysis
Examination of the competitors, as there are many online hotel booking
applications I’ve selected three among top 5 applications for the process.
OYO Rooms, Goibibo and Make My trip
The main goal of competitive analysis in this case is to Identify the best practices in
use in order to reach the user expectation and find a better implementation.
Competitive Analysis - User expectations Factor
In general exploring competitor apps gives us with an opportunity to discover what
is commonly being offered via similar applications. If all the competitors are offering
certain functionality and features, user will likely to expect similar functionality from
the new players and thus I’ve done the quick comparison of content and
functionality across competitors.
Use case generated by
comparing the three apps
1. Launch screen
2. Search page
3. Search and select location
4. Listing page
5. Sort and select a hotel
6. Hotel individual page
7. Enter booking details and
Click Select Room
8. Review Booking Page
9. Payments page
Contextual Inquiry & Survey
Interviewed three users who book online and travel
often, one product designer, one business analyst
and one proprietor of a local business. The
interviews were conducted like contextual enquiry
where user shared information about their work roles
and the questions were asked in relation to their
online hotel booking experience and emphasized on
finding out the goals and needs. All the interview
data was documented quickly.
And a user survey was conducted with a section
based questionnaire list and collected the data about
the users likes and disliked from the process, also
collected data of feature wise satisfactory levels.
Analyze &
Ideate
Design BriefUser Persona
Affinity
Analysis
Affinity Analysis – Extraction of user needs and problems
User Survey
We have analyzed the user survey and obtained quantitative data which gave
us the insights about online hotel booking and user needs. Here are
questionnaires along with the obtained data.
Thank You
Thank You
Open booking page...Insert Location...Insert dates...Click Search...Go to results page...Use Filters...Select a Hotel...Select Room...Click Book...Got to payments page.
Affinity Analysis
Observations – User survey
The major concerns and needs of the user based on the survey are.
• Cancellation Freedom
• Accuracy in the details provided
• Trust Factor with Reviews and Ratings
• Quick booking and easy navigation
• Timing constraints
User
Affinity Analysis – Extraction of user needs and problems
Contextual Inquiries
On completion of Interviews all documented data was analyzed and identified
the user needs and grouped them in a hierarchical way.
Affinity Analysis – Extraction of user needs and problems
Contextual Inquiries
Comparing the observations from user survey and contextual inquiry to identify
the key issues and needs.
• Easy booking and navigation
• Cancellation Freedom
• My Bookings with saved drafts
• Accuracy in data provided
• Quick Support
• Booking price and ATI pricing Variation
Affinity Analysis – Extraction of user needs and problems
Brainstorming
A brainstorming session was conducted to generate the solutions for the
identified key issues and needs.
Affinity Analysis – Extraction of user needs and problems
Key Issues Identified
Easy booking and navigation:
Cancellation Freedom:
My Bookings with saved drafts:
Accuracy in data provided:
Quick Support:
Booking price and ATI pricing
Variation:
Proposed Solution
Single Page with tabs for booking process
Availability of pay at hotel option with a spare time to cancel
the booking.
My booking float button with saved drafts will help the user
to check out some quick details from previous bookings.
Providing the data what users want to see rather than
providing the data what have.
Quick support option for user while making a booking will
help them to choose a better option.
Pricing displayed should always be inclusive of all taxes.
Affinity Analysis – Solutions
Proposed Solution
 The main pages that user navigates through in the booking process after selecting a location are
Listings, Property and Review & book. Keeping these three options visible throughout the process
will make it easy for user to navigate and certainly the process looks pretty easy with just 3 steps.
 Availability of pay at hotel option allows user to reserve the room and incase if there is any change
in the plan he can just cancel the booking and there will be no hassle for refund, in some cases this
option can be a persuasive decider between you and the other competitors.
 At times user may loose internet connection in middle of the booking process or accidentally closes
the application or payment timeout or in any such situations if the current booking has got saved
automatically as a draft for certain time will make it easy for the user to resume and complete
process from where it has got interrupted. Availability of my booking through out the process will
allow user to check or import some details from any of the past bookings if needed.
Affinity Analysis – Solutions
Proposed Solution
 Property page is very important page which makes user to finalize the booking so the information
displayed here should be very accurate and effective, through the brainstorming session I’ve
identified the most important details after location that a user looks for in hierarchical order. HQ
Photographs, User Ratings, Facilities, Pricing, Deals, and Policies(if made visible).
 User may have many quarries while booking, if there is a call support for the users through out the
process he can clarify all the quarries and complete the booking with a happy and relaxed mind.
This facility can also pull in the elder people as a new set of users (future perspective).
 It is very painful to book a ₹2000 room and pay ₹2500 rupees after including all taxes, the pain is
just because user expects that he gets the room at original price and at the end he gets to know
that he should pay 500 rupees extra and thus ends up on a sad note after all the process.
Displaying the price Inclusive of all taxes right from the first page to the end page prepares the user
to pay the displayed amount and the deal for the booking reduces small amount and that makes the
user to end up on a happy note.
User Personas
Design Brief
Proposed Solution
I am going to design a mobile hotel booking application which make the
booking process easy for the user.
Through the design process that focused on the user needs we have identified
the key issues and needs for the betterment of the booking experience and
below mentioned are the major changes that we will deploy in our new design.
Easy booking and navigation
Cancellation Freedom
My Bookings with saved drafts
Accuracy in data provided
Quick Support
Booking price and ATI pricing Variation
Prototyping Visual Design
Wireframes
& Use Cases
Information
Architecture
Launch Screen Sign Up Search Page Booking Page
Listings Property Page Review & Pay
• Menu
• Check In and Out Details
• Enter Location
• Current Location
• Recent Searches
• Popular Locations
• Search
• Search/Change
Location
• My Account
• Quick Support
• Properties List
• Property Names
• Location
• Pricing/Night
• Star Rating
• User Rating
• Dates
• Sort Option
• Filters Option
• Map Mode
• Hotel Name
• Location
• Booking Details
• PaymentOptions
• proceed
• Property Name & Location
• Pricing & Ratings
• Share & Favorite
• Map Location &Weather Forecast
• Facilities
• Booking Details
• Payable Amount
• Apply Coupon
• Important Notes
• Guest policy Statement
• Book now
Information Architecture
Saved Drafts
Previous bookings
Wallet
Quick Call
FAQ
Use Case
Splash screen
Register
Enter plan details
Search and select Location
Enter bookings page
Search and select hotel from listing
Check details
Apply coupon/Deal
Book room
Enter review and pay page
Check your booking details
Select payment options
Proceed
Acknowledgement Page
Wireframes (tentative)
Wireframes are created in
Balsamiq Mockup and here
are the main screens
 Splash screen
 Search screen
 Bookings
• Hotels listing screen
• Individual hotel screen
• Review & book screen
 Thank you screen
Visual design (tentative)
A tentative Quick and Dirty
Prototyping was done using
Justin mind Prototyper tool,
here are the screens and you
can access the same using
the below link.
http://picmeservices.in/chapps/proto
User Testing and Redesigning
multiple times gives us the
final commercial design, very
few assumptions were made
the logo, the number used on
thankyou screen and the
other is that no multiple types
of rooms per each hotel.
Thank You

Online hotel booking application - Design Process

  • 1.
    Online Hotel BookingApplication By Chayapathi, Bachelor’s of Design, IIT Guwahati.
  • 2.
    Overview Start Introduction Designprocess Prototypes Develop Deliver
  • 3.
    Introduction - Background Onlinehotel booking gave a new dimension for the regular hotel booking system in India and the process. Everyone has unique expectations when it comes to booking a hotel online, now online booking facilitates and gives the user with an opportunity to reach their expectation. It can be an awesome experience, as long as the process isn’t too frustrating. In this project I’m going to focused majorly on the betterment of user experience through a process.
  • 4.
  • 5.
  • 6.
    Stakeholder interviews It isa fact that there are many players in the market for online hotel bookings and there are many stakeholders involved in the system who are involved with the process and system. My main objective from the stakeholder interview is to find out the target audience groups and their needs, have taken the interviews of three operations managers from one of the top among the players in the market Rooms. Operation managers are the SPOC for the guest. Each operations team consists of one CX, one cluster manager and one operations manager where operation manager leads the team, they will be handling the guests right from the booking to the checkout and in the meantime they collects feedback from the guests about the stay and booking experience.
  • 7.
    Stakeholder interviews The majorityof users are from corporate sector, Tourism Sector and Events sector.
  • 8.
    Competitive Analysis Examination ofthe competitors, as there are many online hotel booking applications I’ve selected three among top 5 applications for the process. OYO Rooms, Goibibo and Make My trip The main goal of competitive analysis in this case is to Identify the best practices in use in order to reach the user expectation and find a better implementation.
  • 9.
    Competitive Analysis -User expectations Factor In general exploring competitor apps gives us with an opportunity to discover what is commonly being offered via similar applications. If all the competitors are offering certain functionality and features, user will likely to expect similar functionality from the new players and thus I’ve done the quick comparison of content and functionality across competitors. Use case generated by comparing the three apps 1. Launch screen 2. Search page 3. Search and select location 4. Listing page 5. Sort and select a hotel 6. Hotel individual page 7. Enter booking details and Click Select Room 8. Review Booking Page 9. Payments page
  • 10.
    Contextual Inquiry &Survey Interviewed three users who book online and travel often, one product designer, one business analyst and one proprietor of a local business. The interviews were conducted like contextual enquiry where user shared information about their work roles and the questions were asked in relation to their online hotel booking experience and emphasized on finding out the goals and needs. All the interview data was documented quickly. And a user survey was conducted with a section based questionnaire list and collected the data about the users likes and disliked from the process, also collected data of feature wise satisfactory levels.
  • 11.
    Analyze & Ideate Design BriefUserPersona Affinity Analysis
  • 12.
    Affinity Analysis –Extraction of user needs and problems User Survey We have analyzed the user survey and obtained quantitative data which gave us the insights about online hotel booking and user needs. Here are questionnaires along with the obtained data.
  • 13.
    Thank You Thank You Openbooking page...Insert Location...Insert dates...Click Search...Go to results page...Use Filters...Select a Hotel...Select Room...Click Book...Got to payments page.
  • 14.
    Affinity Analysis Observations –User survey The major concerns and needs of the user based on the survey are. • Cancellation Freedom • Accuracy in the details provided • Trust Factor with Reviews and Ratings • Quick booking and easy navigation • Timing constraints User
  • 15.
    Affinity Analysis –Extraction of user needs and problems Contextual Inquiries On completion of Interviews all documented data was analyzed and identified the user needs and grouped them in a hierarchical way.
  • 16.
    Affinity Analysis –Extraction of user needs and problems Contextual Inquiries Comparing the observations from user survey and contextual inquiry to identify the key issues and needs. • Easy booking and navigation • Cancellation Freedom • My Bookings with saved drafts • Accuracy in data provided • Quick Support • Booking price and ATI pricing Variation
  • 17.
    Affinity Analysis –Extraction of user needs and problems Brainstorming A brainstorming session was conducted to generate the solutions for the identified key issues and needs.
  • 18.
    Affinity Analysis –Extraction of user needs and problems Key Issues Identified Easy booking and navigation: Cancellation Freedom: My Bookings with saved drafts: Accuracy in data provided: Quick Support: Booking price and ATI pricing Variation: Proposed Solution Single Page with tabs for booking process Availability of pay at hotel option with a spare time to cancel the booking. My booking float button with saved drafts will help the user to check out some quick details from previous bookings. Providing the data what users want to see rather than providing the data what have. Quick support option for user while making a booking will help them to choose a better option. Pricing displayed should always be inclusive of all taxes.
  • 19.
    Affinity Analysis –Solutions Proposed Solution  The main pages that user navigates through in the booking process after selecting a location are Listings, Property and Review & book. Keeping these three options visible throughout the process will make it easy for user to navigate and certainly the process looks pretty easy with just 3 steps.  Availability of pay at hotel option allows user to reserve the room and incase if there is any change in the plan he can just cancel the booking and there will be no hassle for refund, in some cases this option can be a persuasive decider between you and the other competitors.  At times user may loose internet connection in middle of the booking process or accidentally closes the application or payment timeout or in any such situations if the current booking has got saved automatically as a draft for certain time will make it easy for the user to resume and complete process from where it has got interrupted. Availability of my booking through out the process will allow user to check or import some details from any of the past bookings if needed.
  • 20.
    Affinity Analysis –Solutions Proposed Solution  Property page is very important page which makes user to finalize the booking so the information displayed here should be very accurate and effective, through the brainstorming session I’ve identified the most important details after location that a user looks for in hierarchical order. HQ Photographs, User Ratings, Facilities, Pricing, Deals, and Policies(if made visible).  User may have many quarries while booking, if there is a call support for the users through out the process he can clarify all the quarries and complete the booking with a happy and relaxed mind. This facility can also pull in the elder people as a new set of users (future perspective).  It is very painful to book a ₹2000 room and pay ₹2500 rupees after including all taxes, the pain is just because user expects that he gets the room at original price and at the end he gets to know that he should pay 500 rupees extra and thus ends up on a sad note after all the process. Displaying the price Inclusive of all taxes right from the first page to the end page prepares the user to pay the displayed amount and the deal for the booking reduces small amount and that makes the user to end up on a happy note.
  • 21.
  • 22.
    Design Brief Proposed Solution Iam going to design a mobile hotel booking application which make the booking process easy for the user. Through the design process that focused on the user needs we have identified the key issues and needs for the betterment of the booking experience and below mentioned are the major changes that we will deploy in our new design. Easy booking and navigation Cancellation Freedom My Bookings with saved drafts Accuracy in data provided Quick Support Booking price and ATI pricing Variation
  • 23.
    Prototyping Visual Design Wireframes &Use Cases Information Architecture
  • 24.
    Launch Screen SignUp Search Page Booking Page Listings Property Page Review & Pay • Menu • Check In and Out Details • Enter Location • Current Location • Recent Searches • Popular Locations • Search • Search/Change Location • My Account • Quick Support • Properties List • Property Names • Location • Pricing/Night • Star Rating • User Rating • Dates • Sort Option • Filters Option • Map Mode • Hotel Name • Location • Booking Details • PaymentOptions • proceed • Property Name & Location • Pricing & Ratings • Share & Favorite • Map Location &Weather Forecast • Facilities • Booking Details • Payable Amount • Apply Coupon • Important Notes • Guest policy Statement • Book now Information Architecture Saved Drafts Previous bookings Wallet Quick Call FAQ
  • 25.
    Use Case Splash screen Register Enterplan details Search and select Location Enter bookings page Search and select hotel from listing Check details Apply coupon/Deal Book room Enter review and pay page Check your booking details Select payment options Proceed Acknowledgement Page
  • 26.
    Wireframes (tentative) Wireframes arecreated in Balsamiq Mockup and here are the main screens  Splash screen  Search screen  Bookings • Hotels listing screen • Individual hotel screen • Review & book screen  Thank you screen
  • 27.
    Visual design (tentative) Atentative Quick and Dirty Prototyping was done using Justin mind Prototyper tool, here are the screens and you can access the same using the below link. http://picmeservices.in/chapps/proto
  • 28.
    User Testing andRedesigning multiple times gives us the final commercial design, very few assumptions were made the logo, the number used on thankyou screen and the other is that no multiple types of rooms per each hotel. Thank You