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Travelers Now Book Trips Seamlessly on Virgin Voyages
01 Brief
Virgin Voyages, a global cruise line company, was facing lower booking conversion rates on their mobile web platform. The business sought to understand the problem deeply and enhance the booking journey. As the Lead UX Designer among a team of product and data at Monstarlab, my role was to understand user pain-points, collaborate with a cross-functional team of data and product, craft new core flows, and conduct tests to improve the booking process.
YEAR
2024
DURATION
5 Months
ROLE
Lead UX Designer
PRODUCT
Mobile Web
SKILLS
User Interviews, User Flows, Journey Maps, Prototyping, Testing
Users easily view and edit their trip
02 The Problem
Virgin Voyages sailors could book their trip through the web platform, while the Mobile App was designed for in-ship use. Although 60% of users accessed the booking flow via mobile web, the booking conversion rate was significantly lower than on desktop, which indicated a friction in the mobile experience for the Virgin team. To improve the user experience and increase our key metric—booking conversion rate—our team was tasked to identify the pain points causing users to abandon the process and refine the mobile booking flow accordingly.
03 Research
To get immersive insight into user challenges and values, I conducted interviews by boarding a Virgin cruise ship from Miami to Bahamas to gather firsthand insights with my team. I also conducted competitive benchmarking, mapped user flows to further identify pain points and collaborated with the data team to analyze funnel insights.
04 Key Takeaways
Users preferred the mobile platform for its ease and flexibility in exploring cruise options. However, their experience was disrupted by non-mobile optimized layouts, cluttered information, and confusing navigation. These were leading to frustration and incomplete bookings for people. The key opportunity for Virgin was clear: to simplify the booking flow by improving navigation and creating a more mobile-friendly experience.
05 Solution
I worked closely with the data and product teams to prioritize high-impact areas needing immediate action. I designed core UX flows to be ready for A/B testing to ensure we delivered the most effective solutions for users.
Mobile-friendly Summary
Previously, users had to navigate multiple pages to view cruise details, leading to drop-offs. Displaying key information upfront increased engagement by 20% and bookings by 5.7%.
Behind the scenes -Iterations
I created multiple layout options to simplify the visual clutter. One of them was using a chevron and refining text size to reduce cognitive load and improve user control. User testing revealed that while users appreciated the expandable details, they still wanted quicker access to essential information.
Discover Recommendations
Users struggled to notice 'recommended' voyages due to complex visual hierarchy. Via designing dynamic modules, we made the recommendations more prominent and scalable, resulting in a 6.2% increase in engagement.
Behind the scenes -Iterations
I tested distinct layouts to separate recommended voyages, which users responded well to. However, to further boost engagement, the data team suggested experimenting with alternative messaging like "Feeling Lucky" instead of "Recommended" during a feedback session. Testing showed that this change drew more user interest and improved engagement rates.
Simplified Exploration
The previous price breakdown page overwhelmed users with excessive scrolling. I simplified the layout and added a mobile-friendly drawer for additional details. In our A/B test, the iteration led to a 4.3% increase in booking completions.
More User Control
Users were frustrated with seeing multiple edit options, and editing would restart their process. Introducing a modal with an abort option kept users in the flow. 6% clicked edit, and 45% clicked ‘Continue’.
Besides generating core UX flows, I proposed new features to address user pain points.
One such idea was the "Cruise Curator" feature. As users were struggling to find cruises that matched their preferences, this feature aimed to guide users playfully for exploring cruises.
