Finding the perfect stay

I defined a vision for how travelers choose a room on Expedia, with a design strategy and a step-by-step plan to deliver it alongside a cross-functional team.

RoleProduct Designer
PlatformiOS & web app
Compact room cards+1.7% upgrade rate
Room filters+1.9% upgrade rate

Upgrade rate measured in A/B tests.

Expedia room selection screens: a list of room cards and a room details view
// Goal

“Help travelers understand, compare and book the right room for their needs, based on what they value, at scale.”

Profit per tripConversion
// What travelers told us

Choosing a room meant too much choice and too little difference

  • Duplicate informationThe images seem to be the same, how do you differentiate the rooms?
  • Relevance…what are the times for breakfast? Because if it ends earlier than I usually get up, I am not sure it’s worth it
  • ContextActually that is a great deal for parking. I didn’t even consider it before…
  • Behaviour

    35% of travelers booked the cheapest room, so properties missed out on upgrades.

    24% of travelers never scrolled past the first 3 rooms.

Select a room screen: a room card with photo, attributes, cancellation policy and extras
// Understanding value

What does value mean to a traveler?

Getting more for less: quality and trust weighed against price. It’s personal, and it changes with every trip.

Bubble chart of what travelers value: motivations, traveller type, destination, booking window and expectations overlapping around Experience, with two example room attribute lists

I used this chart throughout the project to show stakeholders why one room card can’t suit every traveler.

// Mapping the landscape

How do we show value today, and who else is working on it?

I audited how Expedia communicated a room’s value, from inspiration to after booking, and mapped every touchpoint on one journey.

With the product team, I then mapped the teams and projects already working on value. It showed us where we could have the most impact, and kept us aligned with the teams around us.

Experience audit: a journey map from inspiration to post-booking, with today's value signals and ongoing initiatives
// Guiding principles

Design principles

Four principles guided every decision, before, during and after booking.

01

Simple

  • Clarity over noiseHide raw data travelers don’t need.
  • Easy comparisonMake rooms simple to compare side by side.

02

Inclusive

  • Works in every marketStructured content that translates across languages.
  • Accessible firstDesigned for travelers with different needs.

03

Trustworthy

  • No hidden feesBe upfront about amenities, parking and breakfast.
  • Real reviewsBack claims with genuine traveler feedback.

04

Insightful

  • Useful tipsShow what matters to this traveler.
  • Smarter upsellsShow what an upgrade actually gets you.
// Ideation

Ideation & prioritisation

We ran a week of ideation with design and business partners across brands, then narrowed 50+ ideas down to 6 priorities.

I presented a prioritisation matrix to stakeholders, weighing traveler value against engineering effort, and we sense-checked it in sprint planning and user testing.

  • 1 week of async ideation
  • 50+ ideas generated
  • 14 conceptual directions
  • 6 finalised priority items
Ideation board: concept cards grouped around the traveler problem 'It is difficult for me to identify the highest Value room for my needs'
// Synthesis

Incremental delivery

One board connected each traveler problem to our hypotheses, the solutions we tested and what we learned. It became the basis for the team’s roadmap towards our north star.

Synthesis board mapping the goal to problems, opportunities, hypotheses, solutions, learnings and the north star
// Vision

Presenting the vision (concept)

I turned the strategy into a future-state proposal stakeholders could click through, so the goals were easy to demo across teams.

  • Narrative document and vision deck
  • Clickable Figma prototypes
  • Phased roadmap for rolling out across brands
Room selection proposal screens
// Solutions

What we tested, and what we learned

Solution 1↑ +1.7% upgrade rate

Bite-sized content

More compact room cards that reveal extras step by step, so travelers make one decision at a time on mobile.

Select a room screen with persisted filters shown above the room cards
Solution 2↑ +1.9% upgrade rate

Room filters

Filters chosen at search carry through to the room list, so travelers see the rooms that fit their needs first.

Solution 3Inconclusive

Highlight shared amenities

Showing the amenities every room has once, instead of on each card, so the differences between rooms stand out.

Solution 4In development

Customisation

Tailoring room information to each traveler, so they can judge what a room is worth to them.

// Rollout

Bringing it to life

With engineering, I planned a phased rollout: ship the smallest useful version, check the numbers, then scale globally.

// Learnings

What I’m taking with me

  1. 01

    Value is personal

    There’s no single best room. Showing the right details to each traveler mattered more than showing more of them.

  2. 02

    Map the landscape early

    Knowing who else was working on value stopped us duplicating effort and turned other teams into allies.

  3. 03

    Ship small, learn fast

    Splitting the vision into testable pieces delivered results while the bigger picture was still being built.