National Geographic Expeditions
National Geographic Expeditions brings travelers to incredible places around the world inspired by our scientists, journalists, and explorers, and stories. This year, we implemented a complete redesign and overhaul of the UX to make browsing and booking a trip seamless.
Role:
Lead UX/UI Designer
Launch Date:
Spring 2018
The Goals
Design an experience that inspires users to travel the world with National Geographic
Simplify the booking process to decrease abandoned booking rate by 10%
Improve the search user experience to increase revenue and conversion rate
Testing Methods
The Goal:
To better understand how users were navigating through the site and finding trips within their interests. We presented them with the scenario: After taking some time to explore the site, we’d like you to find and book a trip within your budget of $4,500. Please show us how you would find this trip, and describe your thoughts as you explore.
The Outcome:
On both desktop and tablet, users had no problem finding trips and reserving departure dates that fit the given criteria. On mobile, users had difficulties finding the reserve button on trip details pages. Given the testing results, we implemented a sticky “reserve online button” at the bottom of the mobile viewport on trip details pages.
Wireframes
Low fidelity wireframes for trip detail pages show site structure and hierarchy before UI is applied.
Trip Details Pages
Trip Details pages were the most complex to design. These pages house all relevant information for a trip. The template had to be visually engaging, and highly customizable for producers to accommodate the large amounts of information needed to sell a variety of trip types.
Homepage
With the redesign, we wanted to educate users on how a National Geographic Expedition are different from experiences with other tour operators. Additionally, a travel homepage needs to provide utility as well as surprise and delight viewers.
Search
Search becomes increasingly important when a user is trying to sift through hundreds of options. With the redesign, we introduced search filters that help narrow down results by a variety of different terms.
Reservation Flow
To minimize user fatigue and abandoned booking rates, we designed a stepped checkout process that reduces the amount of information per screen. Visual indicators at the top of the page represent completion.