How should a travel portal look like and work?

User Interface Design GmbH (UID) has been supporting Expedia since 2002 with usability and design solutions. Customers of Expedia.de and other European Expedia sites are able to find and book travel offers easily, securely and quickly.

"Expedia attaches great importance on permanently optimizing their Web offer, always focussing on the requirements of the users. And it pays off: Among more than 20,000 websites, 2.6 million Internet users rated Expedia.de number one in the category "Travel&Leisure". For the second time in a row, Expedia.de wins the "Oscar of the Web", the OnlineStar. Current figures of the research institute Nielsen/NetRatings prove the leading position of Expedia: With 1.8 million unique users, Expedia.de was the top German travel portal in July 2006.

In many projects, UID provided customized methods and solutions to design convincing websites, to structure the numerous offers and to make the booking more efficient and secure. UID collects and analyzes the requirements of the customers for Expedia in Germany, England, France and Italy, consulting Expedia to implement these needs in new and optimized contents and functions.

Project contents

• Usability tests and expert reviews for the live pages of Expedia.de, Expedia.co.uk, Expedia.fr and Expedia.it, as well as for prototypes and drafts of new content
• Focus groups to analyze customer requirements
• Conception, prototyping and web design for new contents and functions
• Requirements collection and analysis
• Participatory development of the information architecture
• Optimization of the wording
• Analysis of the effectiveness in advertising

Jens Uwe Parkitny, managing director of Expedia.com GmbH: "For us, the expectations of the users on the topic of "how should a travel portal look like and work" is the decisive factor. We have been continously conducting usability tests for six years to permanently optimize the user-friendliness of our website. We build a website which is based on the requirements of our customers. This was the beginning of our success…“
(Interview in: Internet World Business, Volume 23/2006)

Project from 2007

Links for further information

• Interview: "Usability beginnt bei der Entwicklung"
• Konferenzbeitrag: Website-Evolution - Was der Besucher wirklich braucht
• Customer: Expedia.de