online travel site homepages

Preface: it must be Matt Jones day.

Travelocity launched their redesigned site this week (along with a redesigned visual identity). Their press release cites the user research they conducted. "Findings indicated that consumers viewed online travel sites as visually crowded, with too many offers and features competing for their attention." And I think they did hit the mark in cleaning up their home page, their flight search results pages, and their overall IA.

But earlier this week Matt Jones pointed to Michael Bernard's study "Examining User Expectations of the Location of Web Objects," which notes that most study participants "expected a website's internal search engine to be generally centered at the upper half of a web page." (Jones went on to make a recommendation for how the newly redesigned technoati.com should rework their search box.) The combination of Jones' post and the new Travelocity got me thinking about just what it is that I love about Expedia so much (besides the calendar integration, that is), so I went to compare the two (and threw in a look at Orbitz, for good measure).

And something became immediately obvious to me: it's all about the home page. Now, admittedly, I'm a utility bigot, and I'm not the type to surf endlessly for vacation deals to Aruba. But Expedia puts the flight search box -- the number one reason I'm visiting -- front and center, and given it plenty of room to breathe. Both Travelocity and Orbitz, however, shuttle theirs to the left-hand gutter, giving much more visual prominence to "marketing" items -- hotel deals, flight deals, travel deals and deals on deals.

So because there's nothing better to do at midnight on a Thursday, I grabbed screencaps of the home pages of Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz (at 1024x768 resolution with just a bit of chrome and no scrolling) and mapped the major areas of functionality, in four categories. The flight picker (obviously), nav/tools (things that help the user with functionality of the site), marketing (deals, deals and more deals) and branding.

Expedia:

Travelocity:

Orbitz:

The colors obviously tell the story on their own, but what jumps out at me is the visual prominence of Expedia's flight picker, and how the remainder of the page is fairly evenly balanced between nav/tools and marketing. Again, call me a utility bigot, but is it any surprise that Expedia commands 40% of the online travel market?

Comments

[jkottke]

I used to be an Expedia user and think their site is still excellent (travel sites on the Web have good user experience compared to, say, car rental sites), but the Orbitz matrix won me over. Orbitz's attention to detail in visual design is superior to Expedia's as well. Compare their respective flight search results pages. Both have good IA going on, but Orbitz articulates their IA better through visual design.

The same applies on the front page. Expedia may have their search box placed in the middle of the page, but Orbitz's is much more visually prominent. That's gotta count for something, yes?

[elliot]

i agree-the orbitz site is better designed, but of the three times i have ordered tickets from them, something has gone wrong in each case (double billing, booking not going through-still charged, wrong name on hotel reservation). they have horrible customer service, it always took forever to get these resolved, and my credit card company had to step in when i was double billed, because orbitz "couldnt find a record of it"... no more...

[Erika Hall]

I find the Orbitz search box much easier to find and use because of the left-hand location. Reading from left to right as I do, it's the very first thing I encounter. Also, the vertical orientation of the form makes it feel faster.

Although Orbitz devotes a substantial amount of real-estate to marketing, the use of color and tab placement creates the sense of a separate page behind the tabbed search input.

The hierarchy of deals is clear and uncluttered as well.

I guess YMMV with travel sites as with all things.

[pb]

My vote goes to Orbitz for the matrix and better handling of "nearby airports".

Expedia had a huge head start which explains the market share. Travelocity's similar head start (*and* acquisitions of GetThere and Preview Travel) has been marginalized by its lousy site.

[Michelle]

they're all a part of the Sabre family and making ridiculous amounts of money of off hotels, airlines and consumers alike. let's just not buy anything from any of them.

[victor]

Bernard's expections-of-location study should be taken with a grain of salt. James Kalbach's case study showed that affordances can plan a more significant role:

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/challenging_the_status_quo_audi_redesigned.php

[Jason Wall]

I don't travel much, and I've never used Orbitz or Travelocity. What drew me to Expedia initially was their mapping feature. Its just better than Mapquest or Yahoo Maps in terms of the visual clarity of the map itself. Using their map service built confidence, so I naturally went with them for travel stuff.

One last note, personally, expedia's choice of color is what makes most of the difference with me. I don't know if I'm just odd, but somehow the colors inspire more confidence than the others.

[Don Duhon]

Check for bargains here
http://www.duhonmarketing.com

[Shawn]

I believe that we've got healthy competition here, and it's benefiting us users. There are also other small sites out there who offer discount hotel rates. I think they deserve a spot too.

[Juno888]

..it's good that you have that maketing blanding
this is the only one site i saw an marketing blander./

godd job dude..!
good bless

[Travel Guide]

Both expedia and orbitz are good. Design wise I like expedia. The new look travelocity is also good. The cleaning up has done something good to the site's overall looks