I was the UX/UI Designer on this project for Island Getaway Vacation Rentals in 2021. I worked with a creative director, a copy writer, and a team of developers.
We increased booking conversions through the website and updated the branding to meet accessibility criteria.
Vacation Rentals Website
Context
Island Getaway Rentals in South Carolina is recognized as a trusted Hilton Head Island vacation rental company offering professionally managed homes in top communities. Guests seeking reliable service, clean accommodations, and local expertise often choose Island Getaway Rentals over national platforms.
Their website offers search and booking functionality to guests as well as property listing for locals to offer up their homes for rent.
This project started as an effort to increase revenue for the business after tourism was heavily impacted by the pandemic in 2020.
Discover
We did a competitive analysis of the website.
I looked at other rental platforms like Airbnb, VRBO, and booking flows for national hotel chains. What were their online booking experiences like? What were they doing well? What could they be doing better, and how could we use that?
We checked the existing brand against accessibility criteria.
I created a rough brand guideline (they did not have one to reference) of their primary colors and fonts used on the website. I checked contrast levels of all buttons, backgrounds, and text and created a report to present to the client.
We met with the client to assess their existing photo and video assets.
The client sent all of the media assets they owned and I sorted them into either acceptable or does not meet minimum file quality.
Define
Discovery gave us a lot of potential areas for improvement, but we narrowed it down to addressing 3 issues that would see the biggest impact for Island Getaway.
Users were having difficulty finding where to list their property for rent on the site.
The option of listing a property did not appear on the homepage until the footer where it was tucked in with a full site map. Resolving this frustrating user experience was a no brainer since the business relies on properties being listed on their platform to then rent them out to guests.
The website relied heavily on text and was visually uninspiring for guests.
Clear visuals of the destination, accommodations and amenities were crucial to gaining users trust to follow through on booking at all. Having appealing images lets the user envision their vacation in the best possible scenario and creates more excitement for them to book. At a minimum we needed clear photos of properties and ideally we could either source stock images of the destination or offer a photo and video shoot to the client through the agency.
The client’s existing brand was outdated and did not pass accessibility.
Lack of alt text, poor color contrast, and some non responsive components added points of friction to the user journey and negatively impacted the site appearing in search engines.
Develop
Ideate
We created wireframes for pages in the search and booking flow, a proposed branding refresh, and a proof of concept desktop and mobile view of the landing page to present to the client.
Feedback
While the client was enthusiastic with the overall direction, there was apprehension in changing the logo and branding too much and potentially causing confusion with their existing users. They also requested a stronger focus on highlighting their local expertise of the island to better position themselves against national platform competition.
Iterations
I agreed to keep their existing logo but to clean up the image quality and I tweaked their brand colors to meet accessibility while still looking close to the original. After addressing the website feedback I made a clickable prototype for testing with users.
Deliver
Our final solution addressed the three problems we had uncovered:
We created a clear information hierarchy.
There are now clear entries into the user journey at the top of the page for both booking a rental as a guest, and listing a property as a local. Adding a favoriting function helps users keep properties they are considering saved for later booking.
We made the website experience feel better.
Improved visuals and pared down copy help reduce cognitive load and aid users in making informed decisions when booking a vacation that they can look forward to.
We improved accessibility compliance.
Adjusting the existing brand colors helped fix contrast issues while updating the brand typeface improved legibility for mobile users.
Outcomes
We increased conversions through the booking flow.
Users were finding the entry point to the booking flow faster, bounce rates reduced, and more users were returning to the site after favoriting properties.
We met accessibility criteria.
Reducing friction points in the user journey helped contribute to the increase in booking conversions.
The website is now listed first when searching for vacation rentals in Hilton Head.
A combination of a truly responsive website design and relevant copy editing earned the website more visibility with search engines.