Price Comparison Features ✈️📈

The company invested in tools to enable customers to compare and understand flight components in a transparent way, by making vast improvements to its global air products to address traveler fees and service expectations.

Most importantly, we sought to help create a better overall shopping experience for travelers by making it easier to compare similar options across different carriers.

FEATURES LAUNCHED

• A “price trends” tool that will automatically aggregate pricing date for specific destinations based on Expedia users’ recent searches.
  
  
• A “price prediction” feature that will calculate the probability of certain price changes over a given week. 
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• A ‘’structured discovery” platform where flyers can view and repeat previous searches without reentering trip information.

Business Context 📉

What sparked this design project was the introduction of Kayak's Price Prediction feature. Located in the top left of their desktop experience, this impactful feature provided recommendations on booking windows for flight purchases. 

User Mapping 🗺️

Our design team identified the end-to-end travel shopping experience. From there, we identified critical 'touchpoints' were increased data/price transparency would positive improve their shopping experience. 

Price Comparison Designs 📊

Design Summary

Our design teams had two major design deliverables - both standalone and combinable features for price comparison on Expedia. 

Price Trends UI Design

​Price Trends is a continuous shopping tool that will be integrated into the search experience that automatically aggregates pricing data for a specific destination based on Expedia users' recent searches, and analyzes high/mid/low points by range over the last 14 days to reveal deeper insights regarding how the current flight price compares to recent historical data.

It is designed to offer shoppers an easy, straightforward assessment so they can instantly get a deeper understanding about how much current flight fares have increased or decreased over the past two weeks for a particular destination.
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Price Predictions UI Design
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This feature takes Price Trends to the next level by integrating more data and smart predictive analytics to calculate the probability of certain price changes over the next week. Drawing from existing data and real-time insights regarding airline inventory and industry booking trends,

​Expedia's new Price Prediction feature will surface actionable recommendations for travelers  by indicating the best time for them to book based on how prices for a given flight search are expected to increase or decrease over time.

​In the future, it will also provide customers with recommendations about current fares available along with predictions about how quickly certain flight fares and options will likely sell out.

Mobile Price Comparison📱

Summary
Mobile users sought faster tooling and ability to 'save' searches, then pick back up their search on a desktop experience. 
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Structured Discovery UI
Customers visit their Scratchpad to view and repeat searches they've previously completed without having to reenter trip information. Structured Discovery is an extension to this content which presents results from alternate searches, such as different dates or nearby airports, reducing the need for customers to make these searches on their own.

User Testing 🔎

To ensure the designs were understandable and actionable, the team spent extensive time in the Expedia Usability Lab. The two primary technical capabilities of the labs include eye tracking and electromyography (EMG) technology. 

We had the participant click through a live prototype of the design, then track the changes in the EMG readings to understand the real-time impact that the experience is having on the subject as they go through the booking process.

Hypothesis

​Visually engaging designs that: 
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• Lead to the shopper seeing themselves in the flight experience and benefitting from the amenities, 
• Will contribute to the flight shopper feeling more confident that they have chosen the right flight experience
• And encourage the purchase of amenities that suit the traveler

Method
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• Test new visually-oriented design concepts, and
• Explore the site elements that contribute to this confidence​

​Measure
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• Visual attention with eyetracking
• Physiologic emotion with facial EMG, and verbal probes on their emotional experience
• Verbal measures across time on their level of confidence and satisfaction they have chosen the right flight for them 

Findings

Price comparison designs achieve high ease of use and comprehension. Additional actionable insights: 

• Shoppers preferred one, repeating visualization
• Need for simplification of mobile data

Better experience, 
Better business 📈

Alongside our Product Manager and Engineering partners, we constructed a Test and Learn roadmap for the Price Alerts designs. 

Iteratively, we tested the experiences - looking for positive boosts in email sign ups, and ultimately, conversion. The results are best summarized in an industry write up: 

​“The entire online travel market has improved its conversion rates,” said Ryan Williams, an analyst at Millward Brown Digital, a consulting firm that tracks Internet use. “But Expedia’s conversion improvement is outpacing the market.”
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PROJECT RESULTS ✅

• Increased Email Sign-Ups
• Increased Organic Repeat
• Democratize Data for Travel Shoppers!

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