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I need some suggestions on the optimum way to present hotel information on websites such that, a potential customer, gets to see the most amount of info in as less clicks as possible.
The problems I encounter are mainly the fact that I need to optimise the main page and hence it tends to contain a lot of general info. that basically increases the number of clicks before a person finally gets to make a reservation.
More clicks = more exits.
Any suggestions of sites that have got this aspect of web design right ?.
Also, how important is a sites' aesthetic appeal to making sales ?. I see many major players with downright dirty GUI's, but they do make a ton of money.
thanks in advance :D
reservations.broadmoor.com/
I do this for a living (no, that's not my design, but I wish it was) and it is nigh on impossible to get it right. My only advice is to keep it as simple as possible, and then test, test and test again.
[edited by: engine at 10:17 am (utc) on Aug. 12, 2002]
[edit reason] de-linked [/edit]
I think you have just shown me one of the best ways to use flash that I've ever seen.
As a Hotel booking system it is Top
DaveN
I have to admit I am seriously impressed with that page... even enough so to forgive the load delay :)
or maybe it was a WebmasterWorld onslaught.. heh heh..
The idea is that you start off on the home page with the most general information. People who already know the hotel (or are in a huge hurry) can go straight to reservations. Everyone else can drill down through the site, at every stage there being a direct link to reservations. That takes care of the ultra-careful, who want to find out whether a twin room on a no-smoking floor and vegetarian meals is available with a lift, laundry service and easy access to the airport before committing themselves; as well as the ones who just want to log in, book and log out and to blazes with the consequences.
That Flash reservation form looks fantastic. It'd be great if it could be implemented with JavaScript or something, but I doubt if that would be terribly reliable. The only quibble I have with it is the space for inputting your address: although there is a space for "Country", the form is laid out with a US postal address in mind. I live in Berlin, Germany, so I would put "Germany" as my country, but what do I put as the State? Berlin is in the German "Land" of Berlin, but that's not part of the postal address -- besides, the form will only let me have 5 letters (a problem if I am in Sachsen as opposed to Sachsen-Anhalt, for example). Yet the field is marked as "required". Plus, the postal code in a German code must come before the city name, otherwise the post office may refuse to deliver any post, or delay it by anything up to 2 weeks. And no, that is not an exaggeration; it's actually happened to me.
This isn't a quibble about this form in particular, it's a major flaw with most online booking forms laid out with just one country's system in mind. I beg people who design forms with international audiences in mind: use a text area, not a series of input boxes, and allow me to enter my address the way my country's postal authorities say I have to.
Keep in mind though... just because the input boxes are ordered in a certain way doesn't mean the company doesn't have a way to 'correct' the data should they need to print a mailing label.
If you give a text area, there's no telling what kind of garbage you will have to sort through on some submissions. If you give a series of text boxes, the data can be much more easily put into a database where it could be sorted and reformatted by country.
On to the main topic: Why shouldn't a hotel reservation form only be one page? Even without Flash... let me enter the dates and room requirements I'd like, give me a spot to enter any discount codes I may have (if you use them), a spot for credit card & contact info, and if your backend system isn't automated yet, call me back to confirm the reservations (within 24 hours, please!).
The Doubletree online reservation system would have been very easy to use, if I'd known my discount code, and their form had been a bit clearer on where to put it.
more clicks = more exits
As a general rule, that's good to keep in mind. I have one client who upped their sale 20% by eliminating one screen in the checkout process.
But it's still a GENERAL rule, and not an iron clad, always true statement. An overwhelming onslaught of information all in one page can be worse that one extra click. Amazon, for instance, uses a good number of clicks in their process, but they do rather well. That's because each click "makes sense" to the user.
I think the key is having an onscreen logic that aligns to the way a visitor thinks, not the way the back office thinks.
Also, how important is a sites' aesthetic appeal to making sales? I see many major players with downright dirty GUI's, but they do make a ton of money.
Ah, my old favorite - "Slick Ain't Sticky!" - I should trademark that phrase.
There's a balance to be found here. Totally slick and "clean" websites can just slide off your visitors eyes with nary a second look. On the other hand, amateurish looks can undermine trust.
Getting the balance right varies from market to market -- but if you make usability more important than award winning design, then the site will prosper. And the look of a website that "could have been" slick, but chooses to be a little more down home is a far cry from the amateurish look that screams "I can't do any better than this".
Visual presentation needs to be friendly and personal, not corporate and impersonal. Everyone in the board room may like the image that a slick page projects, but does it perform? That's what matters, obviously, and my experience says that overly clean design loses people. It's too impersonal, too monolithic, too machine-like.
The web can be the ultimate one-on-one. So, even in corporate communications, it's good for the visitor to feel that the other side of the communication is also a person. Many people have an inherent mistrust of the overly slick presentation, down deep in their bones.
I think of it like the ancient philosophy of carpet making in the Middle East. You must intentionally include at least one flaw in every carpet, or else you are a human trying to compete with God.
In short, it made me think, and that's not optimum design. I don't want to be told to "start anywhere". I think most visitors want "start here", "do this", "and now this".
If you give a text area, there's no telling what kind of garbage you will have to sort through on some submissions. If you give a series of text boxes, the data can be much more easily put into a database where it could be sorted and reformatted by country.
Mr Mouse, Mickey,
666 Bugrit Ave,
Knackeredville, NC 54321
And, in my experience, companies do not look up every address they get and format it appropriately by hand. They just pull it from the database and print it as is. If it's a big company they have too many addresses to deal with. If it's a small company they don't have the time or the necessary information at their fingertips. You could, I suppose, automate the process, but that still doesn't answer the question of what Herr Otto Normalverbraucher, living in Lübeck, is supposed to put in the box marked "State" so that a) the form will validate and b) his post actually gets delivered without a nasty note from the German Post Office threatening to sue if he doesn't get the company to correct the address (no, that's not paranoia, it actually does happen).
This is the defining point I think. The way to do it is to try to put yourself in the shoppers head. Take a little shopping tour and visit all the sites where you have bought things online. What made you stick with the site? What made you book with the site? Did you get frustrated? Take this information and distill the best ingredients into your own design. Then do a focus group (where the participants are complete randoms) with a few different versions.
We have found that what works best is a discrete online booking system (so that people can find it if they are looking) combined with a one page email enquiry system. That way users don't feel that they are handing over too much information. You then get the person on the phone and presto- we all know that telephone conversion rates (with a good sales person) are much higher anyway.
There is no shopping cart in online travel- it just doesnt work. With such high value purchases there is a case for saying that most people don't even want to book online. Something like a hotel room or a domestic flight is fine for some people but a lot of people wouldn't even do that. Package holidays are hardly ever sold online- people want to talk to someone. They want to ask what the bellboys name is, how deep the pool is and what have you. To back this up with some stats- some research we carried out last year indicated that 67% of our users would not even consider booking a holiday online. People want to speak to someone.
The big market when online booking is concerned is components. Internet savvy users (more often than not they are young professionals) will book their flights on one site, accommodation on another, car hire on a third and insurance on a fourth. The trick is to let them do this seperately and all together- on one site- something very few online travel sites can say that they do.
