Improving Unplugged's cabin booking features

— GOAL

Improving Unplugged’s cabin booking features

— ROLE

User Research

Product Strategy

UX Design

UI Design

Prototyping

Usability Testing

— TIMELINE

5 Weeks

— TEAM

Stephanie de la Uz

Rebekah T.

— TARGET AUDIENCE

Young adults looking to book a rental cabin

I worked on this project with a small team of designers from around the world. The goal of this case study was to improve Unplugged’s Cabin Rental website to make booking a cabin quicker and easier. 

We followed a comprehensive Design Thinking process during the case study while using the latest tools and workflows available.

THE PROBLEM

Young adults using Unplugged.rest spend unnecessary time looking through cabins rather than booking a rental cabin that is available and meets all their criteria quickly.

HYPOTHESIS

We believe that simplifying the information architecture and adding filters and sorting on a rental booking site for young adults will allow them to book a cabin quicker and easier.

THE SOLUTION

My team and I arrived at this solution: updating the cabin search bar, and adding sorting and filtering options to the cabin results page.

0:00

THE OUTCOME

While many testers responded positively to the changes to Unplugged.rest, along with the addition of a sort and filter feature, the majority of testers felt it did not elevate the experience. That being said, two statistics pulled from our usability test seem to indicate that our changes to Unplugged.rest remain useful…

- 86% of testers reported this experience would improve their chances of booking accommodations through Unplugged.rest

- 100% of testers found the option to select travel dates and guests from the very beginning to be helpful

Future iterations may potentially include: updating the sort and filter features to be more responsive and align more with what users want to sort/filter.

To help us better understand the product, we conducted a usability review to identify pain points and wow moments in the existing experience.

With a usability review complete, we moved on to competitor benchmarking to help us identify standards in competitor products that could be used to improve the existing experience.

Indirect competitor GlampingHub

Indirect competitor VRBO

Indirect Competitor Airbnb

To help us better frame any problems with the product, we began by forming some questions and observations we have about the product. To easily document these we followed the structure [situation], [response], [problem to business or experience] to ensure we were aware of users and business needs.

Observation 1

When Unplugged.rest is opened, users see multiple places to book a cabin, which causes confusion on which buttons to choose.

Observation 2

When on the cabin results page, users scroll through multiple unavailable cabins, which causes frustration over the lack of availability.

Awards

It’s Nice That
AIGA
Fonts In Use
The Dieline

Contact

email@domain.com

000-000-000

— Instagram

— Twitter

— Facebook

CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPS

The customer journey mapping helped us identify the pain-points at each touchpoint of the experience.

Map for a busy-body

Map for someone with a budget in mind

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Following the usability review and competitor benchmarking, we mapped the information architecture of the product.

To confirm our observation and begin forming a hypothesis backed by data, we created a user survey to help form no frill user personas and understand the problem space more from real users' perspectives.

Having shared our survey with users of the product, the next stage of our case study was focused on synthesizing the data to recognize trends and form a hypothesis. During the synthesis we segmented user responses and used and affinity map to prioritize the problems of users inline with business needs.

Survey Results

While sorting through the results, my team and I identified three primary trends in the survey data…

- A user’s ability to view available cabins first matters greatly

- Being able to sort cabins by user’s preferences also mattered to users

- The way the site is set up was confusing to the user

…it became clear to my team and I that an iteration to Unplugged.rest’s product that allows users to quickly input travel details and sort/filter the results would provide the greatest value in the shortest amount of time.

👩‍👧‍👦 NO FRILLS USER PERSONAS

During the synthesis stage of our case study, using the User Story…

As a working professional I want to book a cabin quickly so that I can go on a vacation to unwind.

As a person with limited time off I want to be able to see proximity to London for the cabins so that I can save time getting to cabin.

…my team and I focused on identifying the different personas who have frustrations with searching for rental cabins on Unplugged.rest. We created no frills user personas, focusing on their biography, goals and blockers.

With a picture of the problem at hand starting to come into place, we jumped into the ideation phase and worked through the solution design model, identifying users actual behavior, and optimal behavior. This allowed me to form how might we statements to begin forming a solution.

How might we help users to search for available cabins quickly?

How might we display cabins that meet a user’s needs?

To avoid following the first idea we conducted a series of ideation techniques. This allowed us to consider an array of solutions. Following ideation we mapped what could be improved and added and prioritized them based on user value, business value, effort and time.

A mind map in order to narrow down our ideas

What can we improve?

What can we add?

Having prioritized ideas based on what can be improved, or added, we wrote a hypothesis that helps us frame the problem for user and business goals.

We believe that simplifying the information architecture and adding filters and sorting on a rental booking site for young adults will allow them to book a cabin quicker and easier.

Following Ideation we created user flows of the existing experience and improved the flow based on the idea that fit with business and user goals.

The existing user flow

The improved user flow

Following the creation of our hypothesis, we rapidly sketched solutions in low fidelity. This helped us quickly map and understand the current product and consider options for how we could iterate the product directly.

Rapid sketches of the search bar

Sketches of the cabin results page

Creating the paper prototype allowed us to quickly and easily create a lo-fidelity wireframe of the experience directly in Figma. We used a neutral color palette to avoid any decision bias. In a real-world scenario, we would use this prototype to solicit and receive feedback internally.

Using the bones of our lo-fi wireframe, my team and I fleshed our ideas out a little further by creating a mid-fi prototype directly in Figma. The use of Autoflow enabled us to provide greater clarity as to what touch-points would activate certain actions. At this stage, the form of our iteration is really starting to take shape and become clear.

The lo-fi prototype helped us recognize frustrations with the experience that we improved at the hi-fi stage. To create the high fidelity prototype, we inspected the products style and followed the 8pt rule to effectively and easily create a prototype that was consistent with the product styling. Before creating the prototype, we defined styles and components to easily and quickly help us design consistently.

Buttons, chips, and inputs

Typography

Slider and search bar components

Calendar component

Color Palette

Below is the final version of the prototype that we created. We included interactions and transitions from Figma to match the product’s flow.

Hi-fi prototype

With the hi-fi prototype created we formed a testing script with scenario and tasks for the user to complete to validate the prototype with real users. To test the prototype we used Maze and gathered feedback following every task.

HYPOTHESIS RECAP

We believe that simplifying the information architecture and adding filters and sorting on a rental booking site for young adults will allow them to book a cabin quicker and easier.

The Usability Test

GOALS & METRICS

Heading into usability testing, the goals and metrics my team and I felt would define the overall efficacy of our iterations were the following…

- 70% of testers vote our iteration would improve chances to book through Unplugged.rest 

- 70% of testers vote that moving search criteria to the homepage would be helpful 

- 70% of testers find our iteration of ‘sort’ and ‘filtering’ to be helpful

INITIAL RESULTS

The initial results of the usability test, as compared to our original goals and metrics, were very encouraging.

86% of testers reported this experience would improve their chances of booking accommodations through Unplugged.rest. This result sits well above our original goal of 70%.  

100% of testers found the option to select travel dates and guests from the very beginning to be helpful. This result sits well above our original goal of 70%.

When it came to our ‘sorting’ and ‘filtering’, users were not as receptive: 

57% of testers found the ‘sort’ and ‘filter’ options to be useful. This falls far below our original goal of 70%. 

Ultimately, 43% of testers found it to be ‘confusing’ when sorting options.

THE MISSION

71.35% of testers experienced direct success, while 28.65% of testers experienced indirect success.

Based on these numbers, it was clear to my team and I that our iterations to Unplugged.rest’s search system was somewhat successful, but can still use improvement. This assumption is supported by the feedback given on question #4, #6, and #8.

THE USER EXPERIENCE

Overall, 100% of testers reported a neutral or positive experience during the test, with 43% of testers reporting somewhat easy to use, and 52% of testers reporting neither easy or difficult to use.

Seeing as over half of testers reported having a neutral experience interacting with our prototype, we took the time to carefully consider and analyze our testers' feedback. This analysis allowed us to create the area within the interface that could be improved…

SORT AND FILTER FEATURE

Based on the below feedback, it became clear that our iteration’s sort and filter feature would require some extra attention and refinement…

In retrospect, my team and I agreed that the sort and filter feature was helpful to have while narrowing down cabin selection. Perhaps in future iterations, we can make the sorting and filtering feature more responsive, and more in line with what users are actually wanting to sort and filter by.

FINAL THOUGHTS

- 86% of testers reported this experience would improve their chances of booking accommodations through Unplugged.rest

- 100% of testers found the option to select travel dates and guests from the very beginning to be helpful

It is unclear whether or not mobile or tablet users, as opposed to desktop users, might find our iteration to Unplugged.rest to be more intuitive. It is our assumption that desktop users and tablet or mobile users take different actions to achieve the same goal. Finding definitive evidence to prove or disprove this assumption deserves further exploration.

In a real-world scenario, Rebekah and I would take what we’ve learned from this case study in its entirety and continue to make gradual improvements to the product. We believe that integrating our iteration of Unplugged.rest with refining the sort and filter feature would greatly improve the overall user experience and enable the product to better serve young adults.

In summation, creating a user-friendly experience for cabin booking would provide incredible value not only to users, but also to Unplugged.rest as a business.

Steph de la Uz's Portfolio

UNPLUGGED

— GOAL