PRICE ALERTS UX/UI 📈

At Expedia, I was the lead designer for the Flights experience. I managed a team of UX/UI Designers, Content Strategists and UX Researchers. 

Our work focused on the Flights eCommerce experience for Expedia. Annually, users purchased over 100 million flights, in over 120 countries. 

To support a more cohesive and timely experience, our design team collaborated with our engineering and product management partners to develop a series of initial A/B tests to introduce new price tracking and email alters features. ​

PROJECT METRICS ✅

- Increase Email Sign Ups
- Conversion Neutral to Positive
- Lower Acquisition Costs

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. 

Our team studied how they’re price alters worked. We agreed that a more comprehensive visualization may be impactful. Also, we hypothesized that a clearer "Track Prices" experience would increase sign ups.  

Takeaways

• Users want more data
• Users value push notifications
• Get Alerts email form on page

PRICE ALERTS UX/UI DESIGN 

The designs 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. 

A major challenge for the UI design centered on designing mobile first, accessible and scalable data visualizations for our users in over 120 countries.

INTEGRATED PRICE ALERTS

We also explored broader integrations for price alerts and more broadly, price data for potential usage on the Flights Search Results and Flights Details page. 

We sought to integrate it into a flights details page, providing the user the opportunity to further drill into the pricing and booking window data. Additionally, we pushed the boundaries of data visualizations to allow the users to customize their booking windows and subsequent price predictions. 

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 have 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.

Our learnings guided us towards narrowing our designs to the Search Results page (where users were most engaged) as well as design improvements to help user comprehension
​

KEY LEARNINGS
​

• Simpler Visualizations More Effective
• "On Page" Email Sign Up Form

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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