Desert Safari - for Headout, Jul ‘23 - Sep ‘24
Redesigning to increase conversion and discoverability of a travel experiences website
Overview
Redesigned Headout’s microsite, desert safari to boost conversion rate. The redesign was inspired by popular e-commerce patterns and models. Result was a 200% increase in conversion rate (1.15% to 3.5%).
Micro sites are specialized sites that aim to promote a particular category of experiences, they are separated as they rank better in terms of SEO and can capture highly relevant audience in that manner.
Contribution
UX Design & Research --- UXR Methods, Ideation, Visual design, Interaction Design, Prototyping, Dev. Handoff, Design QA
Team
Solo product designer (me), Product Manager, Developers
Highlights
Seamless and efficient exploring for desert safari experiences on Headout’s microsite.
Context
Why redesign this site?
Headout had a goal of reaching 3 million $ in global booking value in 1 year. Majority of revenue came from microsites, specialized sites that were built with the best SEO practices. Improving their conversion rate was an easy way to reach better revenue numbers.
Desert safari was one such website that offered a great opportunity and was underperforming in terms of the funnel. Conversion rate (CVR) sat at a low 1.15%, while generally we saw a 2-4% CVR on other microsites.
In addition to a low CVR, we noticed an average lead time of about 24 hours. Meaning most users were in Dubai already.
Boosting lead times helps us
Anticipate demand better
Cross sell products better
Existing site
What did we have before?
1
Logo and nav bar can do much more to build trust, currently too generic
2
Hero section needs a major visual uplift that matches the safari theme
3
Need to add trust boosters and ratings. Social proof boosts trust
The old landing page
Desktop product card
1
Need better differentiation between combos, passes and other offers
2
Vertical product cards would help compare easier on desktop
3
Too much text creating cognitive overload, moreover important information
Mobile product card
4
Lack of information about what a experience consists of
5
Inclusions, exclusions, start time and etc. missing
The problem(s)
Summarizing problems
Catalog. There were totally 33 experiences and currently showing just 10 was very messy.
Trust. The microsite didn’t do alot to build trust especially given that users see a generic url through a search.
Discoverability. To convert our highly interested traffic, we had to help users find exactly what they want and help discover our entire experience offering
Another problem
Catalog issues
Currently features only 10 products from the 33 experiences collection of desert safari. There were products that had the word ‘Quad Biking’ in the title but had the inclusion of quad biking in one of it’s variants.
To solve this issue, I sat down and noted down what made each of the 33 experience different. This involved marking what was common and what served as a differentiator.
listing common vs differentiating inclusions
The solution
Redesign begins
After competitive analysis, we decided to adopt an approach similar to how e-commerce sell their products.
We planned to add filters, sorting and specialized product cards for this website.
Needed to build trust in the first fold and the rest through social proof
Try to move variants out to make it more visible
Different card design and 3 card layout for luxury safari experiences
We explored ways to help users select inner offerings directly from the main screen, but this approach proved too complex. During testing, users rarely chose the luxury options. Furthermore, some options had lengthy names that didn’t fit well, and simplifying them to "Option 1" or "Option 2" risked adding confusion. Consequently, this idea was tabled.
Nailing the product cards was essential to addressing the problem. Here are some iterations that guided us to the optimal design
4 Hrs • 3:30 PM
Luxury
Standard
Product card iterations
Wireframing
These early wireframes didn’t work as -
Product cards were still not helping improve discoverability
Inclusions exclusions were confusing to the users I tested the wireframes with
1
Full bleed banner that captures user’s trust
2
Horizontal card only for the bestselling card. Data showed us that highlighting one experience as the best selling experience boosted that experience’s conversion rate by ~30%
4
Vertical cards for other offerings to promote discoverability.
3
Filters to help users quickly find what they need
Paper wireframe
Early thought wireframes
Winning wireframe
Final designs
Handoff
Dev & design
Throughout the process, I worked closely with a product manager, data analyst and 2 developers
We had constant communication through a dedicated slack channel and had a weekly call set up to discuss progress and if the approach was lining up
Handoff and QA timelines were smooth because of this transparency for all stakeholders
Takeaways
Acheivements and learnings
Results
200% increase in CVR and avg lead time.
Validation to redesign for specialized micro-sites.
Gaps
Should’ve started wireframing with the mobile version instead of desktop.
Better UX research methodologies such as card sorting and tree testing could’ve helped us make a better website categorization.
Thank you!