[IxDA Discuss] Ease of use of travel booking websites

[John Grøtting]

I assume that most people here have used www.google.com. It is  
wonderfully easy to use.

If I compare this to travel websites, though, I can't say the same.  
Obviously, the tasks are much more complex, but I still feel that  
websites like Expedia overload the user and miss out on opportunities  
to simplify tasks. Not only that, but they miss out completely on the  
opportunity to get the customer excited about their travel destination.

Let me throw out some theoretical numbers: 50% of customers drop-off  
at the homepage and only 10% of people who intend to book ever  
complete their tasks. If anyone has better guesses or real numbers,  
that would be great to hear.

My questions, though, is what do you, my fellow interaction/usability  
experts, believe would be realistic improvements targets? This could  
be applied to other types of website, I just chose this to be specific.

cheers,

John Grøtting

Grøtting + Sauter
Barnerstr. 14B
22765 Hamburg
Germany

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