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May 11, 2009
Travelocity Unveils New Design for Homepage
Travel search site Travelocity has redesigned and features a more minimalistic style. Don't worry. The gnome is still there.
The new design centers around four main tabs:
- Book My Trip
- More Great Deals
- Explore Destinations
- My Travelocity
A "Best Deals" box on the left side features the latest in travel deals.
"In researching the approach for the new homepage, travelers indicated to us that what they wanted from an online travel company is a greater emphasis on deals and relevant offers," said Victoria Treyger, chief marketing officer, Travelocity North America. "We also knew that we had to balance that sentiment with simplicity and providing inspiration. This design addresses each of those challenges in an easy-to-use format."
What do you think of the new design? Leave us a comment and let us know your first impressions.
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Posted by Nathania Johnson on May 11, 2009 5:33 PM
Comments
Mark Johnson May 11, 2009 6:42 PM
I like the look and I like the navigation. When I go to a travel site I'm in the "let's get this done" mode. This site lets you get right down to business and book your trip without having to deal with too many different pages. I also like the gnome (better than the Geico Gecko).
Bob Phillips May 11, 2009 10:49 PM
Hi..
hope you will be fine ... really cute design especially the beard of Old man ...
Good one
kate james May 12, 2009 3:55 AM
I'm writing in response to that last comment. You really need to check out the story behind that gnome. It is not just Travelocity's figure, there is actually a real legend behind the travel and the gnome.
Cheap Hotel Rates May 12, 2009 4:21 PM
While I think the aesthetics are nice, I am not a huge fan of the UI.
How about a one touch login, not you have to click the my travelocity tab and then click my account.
Also they removed the farewatcher from the home page and that was my favorite feature. When I was cookied, it would always show my fares on the home page.
They started doing AB testing on the new page about 6 months ago serving the new site to firefox users and at that point I went so far as to email one of their C-Levels who informed me my comments were passed along....I guess not.
Consumers first!
Morgan Chemij May 13, 2009 10:25 AM
Great design .... really enjoyed .
Ronnie Sullivan August 27, 2009 1:46 AM
As a former PM for SideStep, I have lots of opinions about homepage design. Unfortuntaely, most designs in the travel industry are centered around revenue-optimization rather than user-optimization, so I doubt this is much different. Note that, though flights are selected by default (overwhelmingly what users want), the actual selection mechanism to the left of the search boxes has various kinds of packages first. Why? Travelocity hardly makes anything on flights, makes a bit on hotels and cars, and makes a killing (margin-wise) on packages. It's interesting that they've got Deals, Destinations, and My Travelocity equivalent to their booking pane. Of course, the "Destinations" look like location-filtered deals.
Overall, I think the page is trying to serve too many (internal, revenue-generating) masters. You can tell how the company is divided up (booking, deals, My Travelocity), instead of arranging the site along the axes a *user* believes is important.
Same old, same old. That's why I left travel =)
-Mark Johnson, Live Search / Powerset Program Manager