Hostelworld Contextual Home Screen

Hostelworld is a leading global travel booking agent. The native apps I worked on are award winning apps that see around 12 million users a year. The iOS has a higher app score review then its competitors which at time of writing has 4.8 score.

The Challenge

The problem was the apps lacked a home screen that catered for user needs before, during and after the users trip. The challenge was to create a new contextual data and user driven design. My role was the UI and UX of the homepage and all screens linked from the homepage on the iOS app (Android app is still getting there).

Process

Using research based on our users behaviour from both analytical data and user interviews I brainstormed with the team to create several areas where we could improve the experience and increase conversion on the different stages of our users journey. We used a Design Thinking framework where we could empathise with our users to pin point pain points on their journey. We used surveys and user interviews which we translated into empathy maps and personas. We mapped out the user journey with touch points of where we could make a difference for our users. Once we voted on our top ideas we mocked them up with prototypes to test.

Contextual Design

Contextual design can take many considerations into account, including but not limited to: the user and their role, the task at hand or the step in a process, the user’s location, the time and date, users interests and past behaviours.

Process With Testing

We released in a phased approach with each section user tested. Sections were qualitative and quantitative tested. An example of this is we launched the Top Destinations with illustration that I and another designer created. During feedback our users really resonated with the illustrations. On the other hand we saw through our social media channels how much user generated imagery meant to our users. Swapping the illustrations with user generated images gave pretty inconclusive results on individual user test. However when we tested it in large numbers on production we saw a spike in clicks for the user generated imagery.