Five principles of product design in Booking
Senior Booking.com's UX-designer shared at the Epic Growth Conference grocery marketing conference the philosophy and main product design principles that guide Booking-e.
Watch the video or read the decoding under the cut.
For the third year I have been working as a senior designer at Booking.com. When I first arrived, there were only fifteen product designers at Booking. To date, this number has grown to three hundred. During this time, product managers also became much more.
In my report I will talk about five basic principles that define the design of our products.
The name speaks for itself, but sometimes the understanding can be distorted. The ultimate goal of design is the person and his personal experience.
At Booking.com we design on a huge scale, but this does not mean that we ignore the niche needs of users in the product.
It is often easier to go the easy way, but this can negatively affect the user experience (UX). Therefore, we always strive to do what is important to our users in the first place.
We often hear that food teams to perform daily tasks are based on data. In Booking, we use data, but we definitely support it with empathy. First of all, we empathize with our users, that is, we study their pains, and only then we look at the statistical data.
Not only designers are responsible for the design. Designers, product managers and other professionals should work as a team to create a product and gain valuable experience.
Everyone is a UX designer. Whether you are a project manager, marketing director, general manager, restaurant waiter or taxi driver, everyone has the opportunity to create or influence user experience. This can also be considered a personal experience. Because people are what really matters. I mean not only user experience, but experience, whatever it is.
Ask more correct questions
Most have encountered the following questions:
These are fairly common questions, especially when we talk about growing products. But we consider it wrong to ask these questions, although they, of course, are important and require an answer. If you want to create a good UX, do not start with these questions.
A recent example is Snapchat. The product has a large user base, which continues to grow, but does not make a lot of money. We could go back to one of the questions and ask how to increase revenue, for example. But this, as I mentioned, would not be the right decision. Snapchat's design changes caused a flurry of discontent on the part of users. Over a million people have signed a petition to reverse these changes.
Below is a fragment of data from HubSpot, which refers to the most important factor in site design. More than 76% of surveyed users said that a good site makes it easy to find what they want.
Communicate with your users
At Booking.com we try to regularly communicate with users using various tools:
As an example, I was working on a chat bot. We had a business idea: we wanted this chat bot to help customers easily get answers to recurring questions without having to contact the service. To test the idea, we went to Starbucks and showed visitors design prototypes. We just talked to people, not all of them were even users of Booking.com. But it allowed us to test our idea and get real feedback.
Practice empathy.
We also regularly work on the problems that people have with the product. For this we do a diary study study. They help to reveal the emotions of users. We have been watching users since the moment they thought about booking, and we are watching the emotional state at every stage of the booking. Based on the information received, we draw conclusions as to why the situation was successful or brought disappointment.
One way is to create a collection of various tools for testing your products by people. Examples include the following tools:
I like the last item. We are trying to complete the phrase in such a way as to understand how we can help users. After that we generate a hypothesis.
Hypothesis generation
If you have an idea, you have to prove its value at the business level as well as at the user experience level. It is very important to calculate that the business and the user will receive in return. When you work with proof of hypotheses, it is important not to forget: what you think does not matter. The contribution of your team's ideas is great, but product design is based on facts, and not just on the opinions of people who know the theory of product creation.
The design development process becomes a continuous cycle: we prove hypotheses, create prototypes, test, learn from the experience gained. The main task of this cycle is to learn from the experience gained, be it successful or unsuccessful.
Everything I have said is the basis and will work for any company of any size. This will work for you and for your own products and, in fact, accompany their growth.
More product marketing reports available at the @epicgrowth Telegram Channel . Epic Growth Conference is a product marketing conference organized by Mobio, Getloyal and Appsflyer with the support of myTarget.
Watch the video or read the decoding under the cut.
For the third year I have been working as a senior designer at Booking.com. When I first arrived, there were only fifteen product designers at Booking. To date, this number has grown to three hundred. During this time, product managers also became much more.
In my report I will talk about five basic principles that define the design of our products.
Five principles of Booking in design
1. Design for people
The name speaks for itself, but sometimes the understanding can be distorted. The ultimate goal of design is the person and his personal experience.
2. Details - there is a design
At Booking.com we design on a huge scale, but this does not mean that we ignore the niche needs of users in the product.
3. Do what is right, not what you can
It is often easier to go the easy way, but this can negatively affect the user experience (UX). Therefore, we always strive to do what is important to our users in the first place.
4. Rely on data and be guided by empathy.
We often hear that food teams to perform daily tasks are based on data. In Booking, we use data, but we definitely support it with empathy. First of all, we empathize with our users, that is, we study their pains, and only then we look at the statistical data.
5. Design - team sport
Not only designers are responsible for the design. Designers, product managers and other professionals should work as a team to create a product and gain valuable experience.
Everyone is a UX designer. Whether you are a project manager, marketing director, general manager, restaurant waiter or taxi driver, everyone has the opportunity to create or influence user experience. This can also be considered a personal experience. Because people are what really matters. I mean not only user experience, but experience, whatever it is.
What if you want to create a good UX?
Ask more correct questions
Most have encountered the following questions:
- How do I increase my income?
- How do I reduce costs?
- How do I increase sales from existing customers?
- How can I increase the number of new customers?
- How do I increase the value of shares?
These are fairly common questions, especially when we talk about growing products. But we consider it wrong to ask these questions, although they, of course, are important and require an answer. If you want to create a good UX, do not start with these questions.
A recent example is Snapchat. The product has a large user base, which continues to grow, but does not make a lot of money. We could go back to one of the questions and ask how to increase revenue, for example. But this, as I mentioned, would not be the right decision. Snapchat's design changes caused a flurry of discontent on the part of users. Over a million people have signed a petition to reverse these changes.
Below is a fragment of data from HubSpot, which refers to the most important factor in site design. More than 76% of surveyed users said that a good site makes it easy to find what they want.
Communicate with your users
At Booking.com we try to regularly communicate with users using various tools:
- online survey tools;
- street tests;
- usability tests;
- user research;
- diary study;
As an example, I was working on a chat bot. We had a business idea: we wanted this chat bot to help customers easily get answers to recurring questions without having to contact the service. To test the idea, we went to Starbucks and showed visitors design prototypes. We just talked to people, not all of them were even users of Booking.com. But it allowed us to test our idea and get real feedback.
Practice empathy.
We also regularly work on the problems that people have with the product. For this we do a diary study study. They help to reveal the emotions of users. We have been watching users since the moment they thought about booking, and we are watching the emotional state at every stage of the booking. Based on the information received, we draw conclusions as to why the situation was successful or brought disappointment.
What can we do to improve user experience?
One way is to create a collection of various tools for testing your products by people. Examples include the following tools:
- design sprints;
- brainstorm;
- travel cards;
- points of contact;
- jobs to be done;
- question: how could we ..?
I like the last item. We are trying to complete the phrase in such a way as to understand how we can help users. After that we generate a hypothesis.
Hypothesis generation
- what does success look like?
- understanding what we plan to achieve?
If you have an idea, you have to prove its value at the business level as well as at the user experience level. It is very important to calculate that the business and the user will receive in return. When you work with proof of hypotheses, it is important not to forget: what you think does not matter. The contribution of your team's ideas is great, but product design is based on facts, and not just on the opinions of people who know the theory of product creation.
The design development process becomes a continuous cycle: we prove hypotheses, create prototypes, test, learn from the experience gained. The main task of this cycle is to learn from the experience gained, be it successful or unsuccessful.
Everything I have said is the basis and will work for any company of any size. This will work for you and for your own products and, in fact, accompany their growth.
More product marketing reports available at the @epicgrowth Telegram Channel . Epic Growth Conference is a product marketing conference organized by Mobio, Getloyal and Appsflyer with the support of myTarget.