Experiences marked by exceptional interactions are key components of brand loyalty and trust; to craft them effectively requires UX designers.
Hotel customers’ experiences begin long before they step foot inside your establishment; for this reason, the journey on your website must begin before entering. But what makes a great hotel website?
Visual Hierarchy
UX design provides one of the key functions that UX can perform: visual hierarchy. This involves prioritizing elements based on their importance, then placing them logically for viewers to access – using color or size to identify these important pieces and arrange them in such a way as to enable easy viewing for all. Doing this creates a smooth flow that keeps eyes from wandering aimlessly around your design and wastes time searching for what they need.
Visual hierarchy can also help communicate a message in an effective and clear manner. Without visual hierarchy, information could become overwhelming to viewers or come across as wall of text; visual hierarchy gives clues as to which pieces of information are the most vital, thereby increasing comprehension and helping the recipient grasp your message more readily.
Hospitality websites must prioritize the presentation of vital hotel rates and locations information in an easily digestible format for users; otherwise it could prove damaging to business. A clear and concise layout with emphasis placed on key details is an effective way to provide excellent user experiences while building trust among potential guests.
UX design plays an essential role in hotel websites through reviews and ratings. Visible reviews help build credibility with visitors during the booking process, especially those unfamiliar with English as their primary language or currency. Inclusion of various review sources allows guests to read reviews that speak directly to them and form the best impression possible of your hotel.
UX can also ensure that your website reflects your hotel’s brand voice in its visual design and content – including headlines, descriptions and calls to action – creating a consistent experience that leaves visitors with positive impressions and encourages repeat visits.
Organizational Hierarchy
Hospitality is all about creating a memorable guest experience, from their initial online interaction with your hotel website all the way through to staying there and making reservations quickly and effortlessly. In order to do this successfully, hotel websites should create the same kind of user experience guests can expect when staying there – including being able to book rooms swiftly and effortlessly.
Hierarchies are organizational structures that demonstrate how employees in an organization are organized based on their position and number of subordinates they supervise, often depicted in pyramid form with those closest to the top having more power than those lower down the pyramid. Hierarchy-style models are widely utilized within companies to organize employees as well as demonstrate relations between managers and administrative workers.
Establishing an organizational hierarchy within a hotel is essential to its success, influencing how users perceive it and their likelihood to book there. People will compare your hotel to similar options available nearby and will make their decision on whether you offer what they need at a fair price.
Those who find your website confusing or difficult to use will most likely call your hotel reservation line (at an expense), use an OTA site instead (which may lead to lower bookings), or share negative comments online about their experience – creating an easy-to-use user experience on your hotel site can help minimize these costs and boost bookings. Prioritizing its creation can help avoid these unnecessary expenditures while increasing bookings.
Good UX design demands more than an attractive visual hierarchy; it must also offer visitors the right amount of information in an organized format. Too much content on a page will cause it to look unorganized, leading to confusion for visitors trying to understand what they’re reading.
Erakor Island Resort & Spa does an exceptional job of organizing their content to be user-friendly. Their “Hotel Gallery” provides users with easy to read photos of rooms, amenities and more – complete with a “Book Now” button on every image to make converting visitors into guests a quick process. They also boast their expertise when it comes to weddings and events by featuring eye-catching quotes from previous happy customers as an incentive for potential visitors to consider Erakor for their special event!
Contextual Guidance
Hotel guests need to know which features of your establishment are most important for them, which requires having a clear hierarchy for visitors to quickly find what they need – an effective method being using clearly marked icons that display amenities, rates and other pertinent details that enable users to scan pages quickly and make informed decisions when booking rooms.
One important component of designing for hotels is ensuring their website reflects their brand identity, which is especially critical in luxury hotels that must maintain an aura of sophistication on their site. Every detail, including color palette and typography choices should reflect this sense of luxury that pervades their offering; doing this allows visitors to have an immersive experience, making the website feel like an extension of themselves and the hotel they visit.
Finally, it’s crucial that hotel websites are mobile-friendly. Many travelers browse hotel sites on their phones, and any slow or difficult site will likely cause them to leave frustrated. Therefore, many of the top hotels invest in UX web design services so their websites are optimized for all devices.
Hospitality industry has taken an innovative turn in the digital era. Although a guest’s experience at your hotel begins when they enter its doors, their online journey with you begins much earlier through your website and its user experience design. Designers must create user experiences that clearly establish expectations while leading them down a path of conversion.
Attracting real people and watching how they use your website is the ideal way to evaluate it for user-friendliness, identifying any frustrations or confusion points which need addressing, such as unclear rate names or confusing imagery, as well as any efficiency gains which could be made, like eliminating unnecessary scrolling or making information easy to find. By recognizing these key areas for improvement, an effortless user experience can be created that drives visitors toward bookings.
Brand Voice
User experience on hotel websites should create a positive and memorable experience for visitors, so it is crucial for brands to understand their target audience and design a website around their needs – this can result in higher visit-to-order conversion rates and stronger customer loyalty.
User interface (UI) design typically centers on product functionality; UX design takes a more comprehensive approach that considers how users will feel when engaging with a system. User experience can be affected by various factors including past experiences and interactions within a working environment as well as its value within context.
UX designers work to understand these factors and incorporate them into the user experience of a product or service. The process of understanding and designing user experience takes great empathy for its target users as well as time and resources needed for completion – something many companies consider vital in building brand equity and long-term customer loyalty.
An effective UX is essential to driving bookings and growth at hotel websites, according to recent studies. One such study showed that hotel sites with higher SUPR-Q scores tend to experience greater customer retention rates.
Hotels should focus on creating websites with a user experience tailored to desktop and mobile devices that are fast, responsive, and intuitive for visitors – providing a logical journey for visitors, removing all barriers to conversion, and offering clear and concise information on their property.
One way to create an engaging user experience for hotel websites is by featuring photos that demonstrate its unique features and convey an accurate representation of what it will be like staying there. Hotels may also implement parallax scrolling as an aesthetic strategy to add depth and dimension to their site, by placing a static background image with relevant images or text overlaid on it while users scroll.
With the Covid-19 pandemic impacting travel and tourism, hotels are turning more frequently to their websites as an effective marketing channel to reach potential guests. Therefore, it is even more vital that they offer customers a smooth user experience that offers all of the pertinent details about booking their next stay.