Closer to travel with Holiday Detective
My Role
- Design Lead
- User Researcher (Quan&Qual)
- Design and Brand Evangelist
- Brand Designer
Context
Holiday Detective was a travel deals and inspiration platform with more than 300K monthly users in Spain, France and Netherlands, and serving its community with daily offers via its website, newsletter, and Facebook (main user acquisition channel).
01Challenge
Understanding a diverse user base while dispelling the perception of being a travel agency with too-good-to-be-true offers
02Understanding
Conducting interviews with team members and analyzing analytics guided the initial steps.
The process involved three lanes—iterative design (brand, UI, UX, external communications), research, and content guidelines.
In a rigorous research approach, proto-personas were meticulously developed through interviews with users. Approximately 500 users and prospects contributed data, analyzed using K-means and Latent Class Analysis to identify key attributes.
Refining personas through a robust survey and statistical clustering cultivated a deeper understanding and trust in our authentic user base. This laid the foundation for a more personalized approach to product, content, and communications.
Visualization revealed six major motivations, streamlining deal sourcing, writing, advertising, and enhancing overall product functionality. A scientific approach to personas empowered the business to establish new goals and challenges.
Applying a scientific approach to personas facilitated a comprehensive understanding of the audience for various teams, empowering the business to establish new goals and challenges.
A comprehensive deck detailing preferred activities, destinations, motivations, and blockers was collaboratively created with content teams from different countries, ensuring immediate adoption.
By refining personas through a robust survey and employing statistical clustering, we cultivated a deeper understanding and trust in our authentic user base. This process laid the foundation for a more personalized approach to the product, content, and communications.
This research stage brought profound insights, transforming the team's approach into a user-centric, data-driven method for need-finding and problem-solving.
Phase 2: Branding: A Community-Driven Identity
A design sprint, brand redesign, updated guidelines, social media materials, internal brand ambassadorship, and a compelling presentation marked the shift from a faceless agency to a community-centric brand.
An Element Collage was generated to present the direction with the team and Senior Leadership.
Holidays around the corner, even if they happen far away..
With holidays on the horizon, even those in the distant future, research and brand efforts revealed that users sought more than just cheap flights. Experiences mattered, and money was just one factor in the complex relationship between their desires and experiences.
Our community of Holiday Detectives was already sharing findings, showcasing the depth of engagement with the brand. Now, the challenge was to translate this enthusiasm into the product.
Internally produced videos tested the new brand, exploring fresh formats to better engage with our community.
03.Experience
With a deeper understanding of the entire journey beyond the website, expectations were now better set through clear communication between different teams/channels and the product.
Several iterations were necessary to strike the right balance between captivating visuals, clarity, SEO compliance, and value proposition communication.
After multiple rounds of iteration, involving user interviews, usability testing, and AB Testing, we were ready to proceed.
Snapshot: The Deal Page.
A single landing page emerged as the key solution, where users could grasp in less than 20 seconds that the offers came from third parties (OTAs), and our team of detectives already had activities in mind for each one.
From the logo to the iconography, everything underwent internal design and testing.
04.Outcome
What did we achieve?
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