I've worked on multiple versions and features of the hotel product since 2001. Our most significant design improvement launches in October in a series of phases.

Research and design goals

The design process began with talking to consumers. Our research team talked with Priceline loyalists, Hotwire users and small-business owners. The goal was to understand why Priceline sold more room nights than we did and if the interface was a culprit. After a pricing audit and a site audit, it became clear that Priceline's success came largely through their larger marketing spend. However, we still had a clear direction of what to improve in the hotel path: provide more hotel content, explain our opaque model better and improve neighborhood content.

Improving search resolution

Another failure in the hotel path involves search resolution. This stems from two main problems - Hotwire's limited market coverage and the lack of a geo-database for our site. Hotwire - as a small company with an even smaller supplier relations team - will never be able to have hotel markets everywhere in the world. However, with the addition of a geo-database and the right search resolution - we can intelligently recommend customers places near their destination that we have discounted inventory in.

Selected work on the project

Skills

More work I did at Hotwire...