Overview
Tripadvisor’s Vacation Rentals business transitioned to operate as a full meta provider, making Holiday Lettings the default booking experience for Tripadvisor’s owned inventory. This shift heightened the importance of trust and clarity at the point of booking, making it critical to evaluate and improve the Holiday Lettings booking flow—while staying true to its existing brand and design language.
My Role
I led design and research in close partnership with the Product Manager, collaborating with a User Researcher, Copywriter, and Design Manager.
Approach
Using a combination of data insights, competitor analysis, and design critiques, we formed and validated hypotheses through two design concepts tested with users.
Before introducing new concepts, we assessed how travelers experienced the existing booking flow—specifically where uncertainty, missing information, or friction reduced booking confidence.
Existing Design
The original booking page was cluttered, lengthy, and visually inconsistent within the Holiday Lettings experience. Limited clarity around pricing and payment increased the risk of user error, frustration, and drop-off.
Concept 1: One-Page Booking Flow
A clean, concise single-page form focused on transparency and upfront visibility of key booking details.
Concept 2: Staged Booking Flow
A three-step flow designed to guide users through the process with a more conversational tone and clearer progression.
Additional Concepts Tested
Express Checkout
Explored a faster booking path by allowing signed-in users to move through checkout more quickly.
Refund Protection Add-On
Tested traveler understanding, perceived value, and price sensitivity around a refund protection product.
Revised Booking Flow & Learnings
User testing consistently showed a preference for the revised designs over the existing experience, driven by a few core factors:
- Fixing the basics: Refining the UI to feel more on-brand for Holiday Lettings and visually consistent improved clarity, credibility, and trust.
- Greater transparency: Clearer expectations at each step reduced uncertainty and increased booking confidence.
- Platform-specific optimisation: The booking flow needed to adapt by device to deliver a smooth, low-friction experience across desktop and mobile.
For desktop, users preferred a clean, one-page format that surfaced all relevant information upfront.
Mobile users preferred a staged, step-by-step format that allowed them to focus on one action at a time without feeling overwhelmed.
Together, these learnings reinforced the importance of adapting booking flows to user context and platform constraints—while maintaining clarity, trust, and brand consistency.
