EXO Travel
Revamp of a 4 year old travel itinerary builder for travel agents across the globe. Refine components to optimise user flow. Design system with scalability in mind, and that can outlive its designer.
Company
EXO Travel
Industry
Travel
Role
Contract
Year
2023 - Present
About the Business
EXO Travel is a destination management company (DMC) that helps global travel agencies to build travel itineraries for their travellers. The company of 700 employees was founded in 1998, and offers global travel agencies an easy access to destinations across Asia and the Middle East.
Objective
Over the past 4 years, the product and engineering team has been developing EXO Create, a web application that allows travel agents (customer), to assemble travel itineraries on their own, instead of being fully dependent on the company’s team of travel consultants.
The application allows the agents to browse through a large collection products, ranging from hotels to cruises, and single-day tour to multi-day cross-country tours. EXO Create allows its user to assemble them into an itinerary and have all products booked within a few clicks of a button.
The application has been in beta and only used by a few agents. With the upcoming World Travel Market 2023 approaching, EXO Travel aims to conduct a complete revamp of the 4-year old user interface, rapidly addressing the applications’ shortfall prior to the launch at the world’s largest trade fair in the industry.
I was brought onto the team of 1 project manager and 5 software developers to identify the rooms for improvements and conduct a revamp of the web application prior to the targeted public launch.
Solution
The structure of the pages was muddled by free-floating elements. There are multiple variants of the same components, without reason, hindering the users’ ability to navigate effectively. Modals are laid upon modals, and actions lead to inconsistent behaviour. Coupled with the feedback collected from back the internal team and beta users, I put together a design addressing several key issues.
Sectioning Pages and Components - The structure of the pages was muddled by free-floating elements. There are multiple variants of the same components, without reason, hindering the users’ ability to navigate effectively. Modals are laid upon modals, and actions lead to inconsistent behaviour. Clear section boundaries is absent. Implementing a visual structure could easily improve the overall readability and navigability of the page. See a good example above.
Progressive Disclosure of Buttons - The pages were cluttered with free-floating interactive elements (see above). Progressively disclose them based on their importance will guide users more effectively.
Reduce Modal on Modal - Optimising the user journey by minimising the number of clicks required to accomplish core tasks is essential.
Implementing these changes will not only enhance the user experience but also improve overall efficiency, ensuring that travel agents can accomplish their work tasks more effectively and with minimal friction along the way.
Results and Impact
The entire design revamp was completed on scheduled, and fully implemented. The results were certainly rewarding.
Positive Stakeholder Feedback - The project received positive feedback from stakeholders, management, and its users. Commendations from existing and potential customers were received during the pivotal launch at the 2023 World Travel Market.
Increase in Booking Numbers - There’s an upward trend in the number of bookings made through the platform. With frequent feedback on the user-friendliness and intuitiveness of the interface, browsing and booking experience.
Streamlined Feature Development - The new design system enabled more efficient feature development processes, leading to shorter turnaround times for new features and enhancements. The design system facilitated quick prototyping and iteration, allowing the team to respond promptly.
Retained as Long-Term Contractor - I was retained as their long-term contractor. Continuing to work closely with the product & engineering development team in the ongoing evolution of the application. Developing new features, such as alternative hotel options, carbon footprint information, multi-day package offerings, and many more!
Learnings
This project of revamping a B2B tool for 20+ year old company was especially unique for me, unlike startups I've worked with, EXO Travel had reached a point of stability and profitability long ago, posing different challenges and considerations for innovation.
As we develop this tool that, it is crucial for the product and engineering team to balance innovation with respect for the operational processes honed over the years. We must always thread carefully, ensuring every little things we do will bring operational optimisation that overweighs the disruption.
Note 💬
If you’re a business or hiring manager, this project is summarised and may not have dug into the details you might be looking for. I’d love to share more about any specifics of this project that may relevant to your context process, drop me a message and let’s chat!