Leading cruise company online experience
Reinventing the experience of booking a cruise online to be innovative, approachable, and user-friendly.
Creative Strategy / User Experience Design / Interface design
Currently, 75% of the customers for this cruise company book their cruise through travel agencies or call centers. Our goal was to create innovative design solutions that would showcase forward-thinking approaches to the online experience and increase people’s online engagement when booking a cruise. Through a close partnership with a diverse team of Consultants and UX Researchers, we distilled the business and, more importantly, usability problems to be addressed within the online cruise booking experience to inform these design solutions. We took an agile approach, leveraging the knowledge and business needs from the team, paired with our quick research, to form holistic insights for the client needs and consequently design quick strategic solutions to be presented to the client in weekly sprints.
My challenge in leading this project was balancing the agile nature of the engagement with the complexity of the design challenges. We approached the design in small flows to be designed individually. For each flow, I needed to leverage the users' pain points and the quick research made on current trends and best usability practices. All this knowledge informed the high-fidelity solutions that we presented to the client weekly.
Why am I sharing this case?
This project shows my experience tackling fast-paced projects, consolidating the UX process to the essentials, and problem-solving in a quick matter. It demonstrates my capability to find innovative and effective solutions quickly. and ideate quickly and effectively to propose fully built solutions.
Roles + Responsibilities:
Researcher / Designer
Team Structure:
Solo project
Timeline:
~ 1 month
Assesing & Focusing
Breaking down the complexity, find paths to get started on the booking journey
The challenge when reimagining the online experience for customers to book a cruise is the complexity of the process. People have to consider many different factors: from the flight to take to the port, the cabin where they will stay, what activities to do on the ship, the shore excursions to take at each destination, etc. We wanted to provide a way to reduce the customers’ mental workload when making these decisions and choose a trip that made for them, so we came up with three different paths people could take to get a head start when selecting their cruise.
Searching with a theme in mind
Let's consider our customer Alex. They want to take a trip through the Caribbean with their partner, two kids, and even their partner’s parents. They want a combination of activities for their entire family and activities for couples for them and their partner.
One of the first paths provided is to use the search bar to find cruise options. Alex has the option to not only type in what they are looking for, but they could also filter through destinations, departure ports, dates, and even the type of trip they would want to take. This filter prepopulates popular trips Alex could select, from Family Vacations to VIP experiences. As they see their search results, they can always continue to filter their results to tailor their search and even switch their preferences to find options for Romantic Celebrations rather than Family Vacations.
Bundles that pave your way
Instead of searching, Alex could start from the set of pre-made bundles provided that includes all the details needed to select a cruise. When they choose a bundle to start from, they will see more tailored recommendations based on their lifestyle or trip preferences. Each option will outline which activities or reservations made these options tailored for them and which one most aligns with Alex’s preferences for their family trip. As they move forward with one bundle, Alex can always edit and refine the pre-selected details for their trip to adjust and tailor it to make the most out of their cruise.
Cruising based on personality
Lastly, if Alex were new to cruising and did not know where to start, they could always take the Cruise Match quiz, which would give them recommendations based on their personalities. The questions on this quiz are meant to be experiential and fun, to take our customers' minds out of the overwhelming amount of details to choose from. Instead, the quiz gives them a fun experience that would result in recommendations based on their personality profile. In this case, Alex turned out to be a big Gourmet Connoisseur, and therefore we provide recommendations that would best align with a foodie experience.
Supporting customers every step of the way
One of our goals was to provide a seamless omnichannel experience on our client’s website, where customers could do anything without resorting to other channels to complete their cruise booking. To design for this need, we included a robust customer support feature that would allow anyone to jump on a video chat with a representative (called Cruise Vacation Planner) that could help them with their questions or even assist them in making selections for their trip. This way, Alex could move forward with their booking process and trust that a person is there to help them through their questions or process without leaving the site or what they are doing.
Our clients’ customers also craved an easier way to decide what cruise or shore excursion to take. In this case, Alex wanted to know which shore excursions to add to their trip, so the Cruise Vacation Planner helped them compare options to make a selection of three they could compare and see their details side-by-side.
Trusting people to make informed decisions
Our client was very interested in including reviews as part of the information provided for each cruise available to increase their customers’ trust and loyalty to the company. Currently, customers must resort to third-party websites to get a sense of other people’s experience within cruises, and go through multiple reviews to read about what they are specifically looking for, whether reviews on the excursions or the ship, restaurants, etc. We aimed to create an outside-the-box user experience that would entice the customers visually but also provide new functionalities that would make the review search easy and reliable.
Going back to Alex's trip, our solution provided them with a high-level summary outlining what type of trip and who this cruise would be good for. Since they see the trip is ideal for families, they continue filtering to read reviews that specifically mention family experiences and what excursions people enjoyed when on the cruise. The review feature aggregates reviews written on the company's website as well as reviews from third-party sites, to provide customers with a full and unbiased perspective of other customers’ experiences.
Trips for everyone involved, planned collectively
The last pain point we wanted to address was how to accommodate for the complexity of booking a trip for several people and taking everyone’s preferences in mind for the cruise they would like to go to and the activities on the ship and shore destinations.
The solution provided is a dashboard feature where customers can save their trips and options to consider for the trip, and everyone involved can add more and vote on their favorites. For Alex’s family trip, everyone involved has voted decided on the cruise to go on and is voting on the excursions they want to go as a whole family or in smaller groups. They can also populate their calendar for activities to do on the days the ship is cruising. At any point, everyone can add comments to their selections or jump on a chat with whoever is online.
Once all the details are defined and everyone is ready to book the trip, Alex can come back to their cart, slip the payment with their parents or another member of their trip, and they have flexible options in terms of methods of payment and amount to pay to first book the trip.
Always learning, and evolving
How did creating this project help me be the designer I am today?
This project helped me evolve my ideation and discovery process to adapt to the fast and everchanging rhythm of our consultant team is used to working with this client.
I greatly improved my skills to develop a robust design system that could be leveraged and adapted to the different user flow needed in an agile timeline.
Being embedded in a case team helped me grow as a creative consultant, establishing myself as a subject matter expert and providing guidance and guardrails on the possibilities of what could be done.Learned how valuable it is to get an immersive view of the user’s lives and challenges, which lead me to understand their true needs
Soft skills improved or gained
Listening, interviewing, communicator, presentation, writing, critical thinking, agile working, problem solving, project management, creative leadership, adaptability, prioritization, strategic planning, work under pressure
Looking back, what would I do differently?
I would have proposed to shift our approach and view the redesign efforts holistically, thinking about the entirety of the online experience, rather than addressing specific features.
I would want to dedicate time to fully optimize the design system to carry out more efficiently to address the website holistically.
Design skills improved or gained
UX Design, UI design, (knowledge on typography, hierarchy, composition, color theory, common UI patterns, visual strategy), Content creation.
Main Software: Adobe XD
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