Trip.com
Establish product design and brand identity of Trip.com Group Gourmet
OVERVIEW
Trip.com Group Gourmet
Trip.com is an international online travel agency. It is currently the largest online travel agency (OTA) in China and one of the largest travel service providers in the world with over 400 million users worldwide.
Trip.com Group Gourmet is an independent food brand of Trip.com, which is the first travel food recommendation guide in line with Chinese taste. I was part of this ambitious project to redesign the Trip.com Group Gourmet experience. I focused on the areas of user research, experience design, interface design and branding.
Role
User Researcher
Senior Product Designer
Branding Designer
Tools
Sketch
Figma
Adobe After Effects
Timeline
3 years +
UNDERSTANDING THE USERS
Users' Travel Diet Interview (Qualitative Research)
As the product designer of the gourmet department, I cooperated with the product managers and the user research team to conduct research on Trip.com users' eating habits during travel, aiming to explore:
1. What is the user's decision process for selecting a restaurant when travelling?
2. What are the gourmet services that users need?
3. How do users rate Trip.com Gourmet? How does the competition perform?
4. Do users follow foodies?
5. What are the ways of cooperation with foodies?
MAIN POINT 1 (Product Positioning)
Daily diets are difficult to cut through, and business diets are in low demand. However, there are still opportunities for travel diets, especially overseas.
MAIN POINT 2 (User Journey Map)
When people have their meals while travelling in China, they rely on dianping.com; When they go abroad, they focus on researching gourmet guides and have more difficulty on booking and ordering.
MAIN POINT 3
Travellers usually target local specialities first, then use pictures and reviews to determine whether the restaurant's environment, cuisine, and service are worth eating at.
MAIN POINT 4
A review of the features of competing products shows that Trip.com Gourmet has limited support for the entire chain.
MAIN POINT 5
The acceptance of foodies is slightly low, the positioning of the eco-chain is not uniform, and the mode of cooperation needs to be carefully negotiated.
PRODUCT ITERATIONS
Based on the valuable content obtained from the research, we identified the product functions that needed to be refined. I used the Kano model to prioritise the product iterations.
KEY ITERATIONS
As there are so many features have been improved, I have extracted a few iterations that have made significant data improvements to the product to elaborate on them in more detail. These include the iterations of the home page, the restaurant reservation, and brand optimization.
Homepage
V7.4 - V7.5
7.5 Product Requirements
Increase conversion from Gourmet home page to POI details page.
Analysis of existing problems
Conduct competitive audits
After identifying the existing problems, I confirmed the key competitors and analysed the User interface, visual design and content of direct competitors and indirect competitors to come up with a solution.
Design process：
Problem1 - Loss of users due to high prices in Gourmet Guide restaurants
Aggregating the Gourmet Guide and displaying them in a large format to enhance a sense of quality which is in line with the brand positioning of Gourmet Guide. Normal restaurants' information is also revealed on the first screen to increase user retention.
Problem2 - The interface is colourful and visually misleading
Firstly, ranking the POI information based on their importance, then optimising the interface design to reduce the impact of colour.
Problem3 - Operating behaviour not in line with user expectations
Optimise the filter to simulate scenarios, create information hierarchies in a limited plane, refine the operation process and improve the user experience.
Problem4 - Unclear hierarchy of sections on the page.
After reorganising the UI on the basis of Jacob's Law, the overall layout is clearer and the first screen information is displayed more efficiently. However, this iteration only serves to rationalise the layout of the initial version, and some product features have not been added.
7.5 Final layout and comparison
The conversion from the home page to the restaurant detail page increased by 7.68%.
V7.5 - V7.9
7.9 Product Requirements
Enhancing brand design delivery of the Gourmet Guide portal.
We had created local specialities and foodie recommendations in the middle iterations. These functions were initially placed in the banner area. This iteration expects to release these functions from the banner as quick accesses.
User interface design process
Unsolicited proposal
Pain Point: The information on the general restaurant list was cumbersome and unfocused. It was difficult for users to identify valid information quickly.
Solution: Increased the height of the image and information layer; increased the spacing between POIs; extracted the label from the cumbersome description field for display.
7.9 Final Layout:
As of V7.9, data conversion from the home page to the restaurant detail page has improved from 13.1% to 38.5%. A total improvement of 25.4%. It shows that the design delivers the crucial value of the product.
Restaurant Reservation
User Goals
Finding a restaurant to book a table;
Viewing reservation information.
Product Requirements
Adding a restaurant reservation function;
Increasing the click-through rate of seat reservations;
Increasing reservation conversation rate;
Optimizing the timing & booking process to help users choose a restaurant.
Low-fidelity Prototype
High-fidelity Prototype
The process of the general reservation
Home page to the reservation feature page
Add or strengthen the reservation function in the appropriate process, which effectively improves the gourmet section's overall click rate and conversion rate. Users can experience the closed-loop in the Gourmet section.
After the iteration, the Trip.com Gourmet section saw a 28.7% sequentially increase in visitors.
Brand Optimization
Trip.com Gourmet List is an independent brand that requires corresponding brand design support. As the head of the design of the gourmet section, I made the brochure, gourmet photo shooting guidelines, medals, etc.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This project developed the thinking that allows me to dig into user needs from the bottom up and to think about the big picture.
After understanding the project objectives, I used to think out of the box and consider the underlying logic instead of immediately sticking to the design details. During the user research phase, I always received the information given by users with an open mind. It also turned out that sometimes my expectations conflicted with the actual feedback. In the meantime, I dug into the user's pain points in the data research and verified the design's effectiveness through the data.
Secondly, I think the project has progressed due to my ability to manage iterative tasks and maintain open communication with stakeholders.
Sometimes, many requirements are piled up during projects, so prioritizing different projects is very important. It is also essential to communicate with front-end engineers, product managers, quality assurances and other stakeholders to understand each other's position.
It is an honour to be the head of design of Trip.com Gourmet.
I am very grateful to my colleagues for their tolerance and support, and I cherish the experience and the growth this project has brought me.
REFERENCE LETTER
Reference Letter from Kimi Liu, the former chairman of Trip.com Gourmet List and the CEO of TripAdvisor China now. The background of this letter is I tended to have my master's degree in UAL at that time.