Add An “Attractions” Feature to the Kayak App

Project Time Frame: 1 Week

The Challenge

Incorporate a new feature into an existing product, based on user needs. In this case, the users were my Bootcamp colleagues and I was assigned to add an “attractions” feature to the Kayak app. The focus of this challenge was less about the research part and more about improving visual design skills.

Competitor Analysis

Over the years, a lot of traveling platforms have enriched their repertoire with an “attractions” or “experience” option. Airbnb and Booking.com are two companies that have moved beyond simply booking a place to stay and/or a flight. Get your Guide on the other hand is a platform that specified on experiences from the very beginning.

Talking to an Expert

I reached out for an expert interview with a Senior UI Manager from Get your Guide, to investigate about how they organize their page for people to not only get a guide, but to also find the information they’re looking for as efficiently as possible. Her job is to manage a team of researchers and designers in order to increase the platform’s usability. The issue of offering experiences as opposed to commodities, she says, lies in the differences within the experience section. Whereas one room in a hotel is the same as the other room for the same price, experiences need to be assessed differently. In order to do so, it takes a fine balance between research and testing, second of which can become tricky, as people might say one thing when looking or behaving differently. Two factors to generally think of when slicing information so that it makes sense for the user are scale and big inventory. In order for testing to be successful, it needs enough information and users to be able to say that there is a definite pattern.

Information Architecture

Research and testing weren’t much of an option nor a task within the scope of this challenge. The purpose was to strengthen my visual design skills. I had already decided for the placement of the new feature before conducting the expert interview, intuitively placing it next to the flight, accommodation and car renting icons. What this interview did inspire me with, was the structure of what’s to follow the click on the “attractions” icon.

For the further trajectory of the user flow I was inspired by Kayak’s existing design, while also leaning on the well-researched platform of Get your Guide.

After the user selects the dates they’re looking after attractions for, as well as the number of people wanting to join, they are directed to the page where recommended attractions are displayed. Through a horizontal scroll, they are also offered the possibility of choosing another category, like “sight seeing”, “culinary” and “history and culture” to specify their search options, as seen in the mid-fi depiction below.

User Flow

Three weeks prior to this project, I had zero experience with Figma or similar design programs and I am proud to say that I designed the following hi-fi prototype all by myself, according to the set user flow depicted above: