Hocking Hills were looking for a new and improved UX to be delivered in a fairly quick time scale and budget. Their initial focus was to address the part of the site that allows users to search and book park cabins. These were often luxurious cabins in stunning locations but the existing website wasn’t doing them justice.
Project deliverables
- Make UX recommendations to improve booking flow
- Provide design options for search and book
- Design search and book and a handful of key landing pages
My process
UX recommendations
To understand the current situation we performed a heuristic review of the existing site. This takes the form of applying a standard set of criteria against a website or system and seeing how they perform against a startnard set of criteria. We identified and documented a number of usability concerns. Some concerns were small but we of larger concern we found that the navigation could be confusing for users, making it difficult for potential applicants to complete their task.
Design and prototype
I produced a couple of design concepts to give a feel of the direction that Hocking Hills wanted to go with using the same information architecture and content elements.
Prototype search flow
In order to gain confidence in the information architecture and new user journeys I started designing out the pages and produced a prototype. This not only helped communicate the interaction design but also allowed validation through some guerilla usability testing
Final set of designs
With the confidence that the flows were working I went on to produce the final set of designs. I worked to ensure calls to action were clear and consistent. Whilst still providing links to external websites these were made a lot more subtle. The booking flow was brought in line with the search design to make the whole journey cohesive.
Document design system and designs
Given that development was yet to start it was important to document the designs and design system. I used notion to document the design work from typography choices and how to implement them, through to colour systems, stock photography and of-course the prototype and screen designs.
Outcomes
A full suite of mobile and desktop designs delivered with a prototype and documented in notion ready for delivery.
Learnings
Although I was able to source a couple of great free stock images it was worth the investment to purchase the right images, which were even specific to HH state park.
Although I would like to have optimised the checkout UX for a ‘sunny day’ scenario there were requirements which meant that there were still some steps that had to go in there. I could have saved time by establishing the extra user stories earlier in the process.