VACASA BOOKING EXPERIENCE
Reimagining the traveler experience for a Vacation Rental Management Company
Vacasa is an international vacation rental management company based in Portland, Oregon, that manages properties in 34 U.S. states. It offers accommodation options for travelers and maintenance services to house owners.
This project aims on redesigning Vacasa's website by conducting user research to identify user pain points and understand their unmet needs.
UX Research | Wire-framing | Visual Design | User Interface Design
Team
Hriti Shah, Mishi Sarda
Duration
Aug 2021 to Dec 2021
Tools
Figma, Miro, Google Forms
User Profile
To get started, I, along with my team member identified two user groups, those who rent out their vacation homes and those who go on vacations regularly. Initially, we gathered the pain points and interviewed both types of users. However, we later decided to focus on travelers due to more avenues in that domain.
USER INTERVIEWS
Later I conducted semi-structured user interviews for two types of users - Travelers with and travelers without pets. Some of the research and interview questions include:
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
How do people decide the accommodation for their vacation?
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Do people know what city they should travel to before looking at housing?
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How could Vacasa make planning group trips easier?
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
In the past year, how many trips have you taken that required hotel/ lodging accommodations?
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How do you generally manage bookings when renting out your vacation home?
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On an average, how many people do you travel with?
I haven't found services which gives me certain confidence to travel with my dog without second thoughts.
As a student, I want to be able to find great deals that fit my budget and travel as frequently as I can.
KEY INSIGHTS
Users do not feel confident in services when traveling with pets.
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Users want to be able to find good deals and budget-friendly accommodations.
OPPORTUNITY
To create an experience for travelers with pets to feel confident in services.
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To create an experience for budget travelers to be able to find deals and pocket-friendly options.
USER PERSONA
STORYBOARD
Competitor Analysis
To better understand the best practices, I decided to conduct some competitor analysis. The competitors included Airbnb, Vrbo, and Guesty.
User Testing
Moderated Remote User Testing of vacasa.com produced some usability problems. After analyzing the testing sessions, the team proposed potential solutions. The following tasks were given to the users while interacting with the website.
Scenario 1:
You have never been to South Florida and are planning a trip to the area with two of your friends and your dog Milo. You are trying to find a place to stay while you're there.
Task 1: Find out a pet-friendly vacation rental under $300 per night.
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Task 2: You are very nervous about taking your dog with you for your vacation. Find out about the experiences of other guests who brought their dogs along.
Scenario 2:
You want to go on a trip with your friends during the holiday season but not sure about where to go.
Task 1: Find a budget friendly place that can accommodate 8 people.
I love how there are all these beautiful images and pictures on the website for each rental.
There needs to be a review section to get an idea about the property and the facilities provided by Vacasa.
USER PAIN POINTS
Difficulty finding pet friendly rentals
Finds it hard to look for reviews or experiences of previous travelers
Finds the copy of the navigation bar confusing
Finds it confusing to look for places when destination not decided
Finds it hard to look for reviews of previous travelers
Experiences inconvenience finding the homepage due to Nav design
RECOGNIZE OPPORTUNITIES
How might we make pet friendly rentals more discoverable
How might we make the copy of the navigation bar more intuitive
How might we make experiences from previous travelers more lucid
How might we make the homepage content more concise
How might we make it easy for the users to choose a destination
POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS
Filters
Add quick filters on the user reviews and results page
Restructure content
Re-arrange the content on homepage according to preference and revised IA
Blog section
Blog section to further describe visitor experience
New feature
Add a mechanism that helps users choose destination and add metrics on user reviews
QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
We conducted a quantitative analysis to understand the factors travelers consider when booking a holiday. This helped us in informing the questionnaire for the trip recommender.
Information Architecture
After doing the primary and secondary research, the team revised the Information Architecture for Vacasa’s website to improve the navigation and make it more intuitive for the users.
Mid-Fidelity Prototype
Based on the research and key insights gathered, the team redesigned some of the pages and introduced new features to address the pain points.
High-Fidelity Prototype
The team developed high-fidelity prototypes after exploring the style guide and system for the re-design.
COLOR PALETTE
TYPEFACE
User Feedback
The team asked users to interact with the prototype and received some valuable feedback.
I think the trip recommender can be pretty useful if used in the right way, especially when you’re confused about where to travel.
- Post-session thought of a user