Usability Tests
Our user research involved 8 participants who used princess.com for 45-60 minutes to research possible cruise trips for their upcoming vacation.
Search Results
Background: Why a Redesign?
Without having done a substantial redesign in some time, the Search Results page was facing multiple issues from content and features being continually added over time. The page also faced an outdated look and mounting usability problems.
Our scrum team consisted of a front-developer, two back-end developers, a QA analyst, product manager, and business analyst.
View prototypeDesign Role:
- Concept sketches
- Wireframes
- UX/UI Design
- Prototyping
Results:
- 11% lift on conversions in the first week
The Problem
How might we redesign search results to make it more user-friendly, streamline the search process, and reduce cognitive overload for the user?
The Solution
We decided to implement a redesign of the Search Results page that eliminated any unnecessary steps, exposed search refinements, and removed elements not relevant to the user's main goal; finding their cruise vacation.
Discover
User Personas
Our past research allowed us to create personas to help us narrow in on our core set users and fully understand their unique problems & goals.
Stephen Cole
The Learning Family (Kid Pleaser)
Demographics
- Age: 32
- Occupation: Marketing Assistant
- Status: Married, has kids
- Location: Los Angeles, CA
Goals
- Sharing the world with their kids
- Having a diverse and enriching experience
- Spending meaningful family time
- Designing the perfect vacation for their family
Frustrations
- Limited availability of kid-friendly events
- Going to the same destinations
- Difficulty searching within a certain date range
Nicole Morales
The Discerning Recharger
Demographics
- Age: 55
- Occupation: Dentist
- Status: Married, no kids
- Location: Boston, MA
Goals
- Relaxing and enjoying the ship
- Having a romantic and enriching experience
- Having a vacation to tell others about
- Checking things off the bucket list
Frustrations
- Hurrying from one place to another
- Going to the same destinations
- Difficulty searching within a certain date range
Jordi Herman
The Social Voyager
Demographics
- Age: 65+
- Occupation: Retired
- Status: Married, no kids
- Location: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Goals
- Relaxing and enjoying the ship
- Having a casual, low-key vacation
- Checking things off the bucket list
Frustrations
- Going to the same destinations
- Difficulty searching within a certain date range
- Large cruise ship with lots of people
User Test Findings
- Method to refine your search not easily found
- Users overwhelmed by the amount of content
- Features like Click to Chat went unnoticed
Define
Documentation
We started our kick-off meeting to establish business objectives and KPIs we would like to strive for. I created a document to help keep tabs on everything. This also helps keep the team all on the same page.
Sketches
Here are some of the sketches I made during my research and low-fi design phase. I explored many different ways we could meet our goals; interactive maps, personalized promotions, many filters to almost no filters.
We met with our user researcher, design manager, product manager, and sometimes our developers as well depending on how complex our solutions. Sketches were narrowed down and revised based on our conversations.
View sketches
Wireframes
We found that users were less overwhelmed by tucking away the search filters. Users were still able to notice the filters as a horizontal bar on top of the page.
This also gave us the added benefit of having more space for the cruise results below. We utilized this to create a wide 1 column layout for each card. Deals & promotions were also prioritized through the tabbed navigation on top.
View wireframes
Develop
High-Fidelity Mockups
Once we added color, we found that users were starting to miss the search filter bar on top. We darkened the color in order to add visibility and meet color contrast standards.
Some filters were brought out such as Guest, Stateroom, and Sort by Price as we found that our more experienced users favored these.
View prototype
Deliver
The Hand Off
We went over the designs and the functionality required to achieve everything we wanted. Our scrum team broke up the tasks into sizable sprints from there.
I met with the developers to hand off the prototypes for the design, go over any functionality I deemed important to mention, and answer any of their questions.
View live site
One of the many whiteboard discussions the team had over the course of the project.
The Conclusion
We got our redesign to launch and used Adobe Target to measure our new redesign with the old design. We were ecstatic to get an 11% lift on cruise bookings within the first week.
I learned what it is like to work on such a large project. With so many decisions being made in meetings, I found how important it can be to lean on documentation. It is so easy to forget what and why something was decided that happened weeks ago.
If I had more time to work on this, I would find ways to prioritize only the most relevant content for the user’s main goal; find & book a cruise. I would research with more users to help discover what content is not particularly on their minds at this point.
Screenshot of our Adobe Target results for the Search Results page.