Current Site

To begin my research and analysis I started by working through the current reservation system to understand what a user would see and experience when booking a trip (yes, I did book a trip while doing research). I found that not only was there a lack of flow from one action to the next, but there were a lot of times that I had to go back and forth between pages to accomplish a simple task. With the limited amount of time I had to complete this project, I made sure I captured the main problem areas on each page.

Preferences

+ Must select a hotel to move forward

+ Must then select a room type (based on hotel selection)

+ Ability to select accessible rooms

Resort Offer

+ Crowded with information

+ Offers even if it isn’t fully available

+ No way to change parameters from this page

Alternate Offers

+ Shows other offers available based on full availability

+ Does not show all other hotels

+ Unclear why it shows these hotels and not others

DVC Points

+ Very confusing

+ Overwhelming amount of info/instructions

+ Does not show how many points you need for the reservation

Reservation Loop

One of, if not the main issue I ran into while using the DVC reservation site was what I am calling the “reservation loop”. When trying to find a resort that is available, guests must select a hotel and a room before seeing any availability. Once a hotel and room are selected, a guest will then be taken to another page that either tells the guest this is available or says it is unavailable. This leads to a back and forth between the selection of hotels and rooms page and the availability page because the hotel and room cannot be changed on the second page. This loop continues until the guest is able to select the perfect combination that is available. Pretty frustrating if you ask me.

Refined State

The main goal of the new state of the DVC site was to limit the back and forth of the reservation system. In order to do this I decided to reduce the information needed at the beginning of the process, and keep the guests on one page for the majority of their time selecting a resort. By keeping resort information, selections and the ability to change filters in one centralized place, the guests will be able to see everything they could need without the frustration of multiple pages and clicks.

Landing Page

The key to this landing page was to make it inviting and simplistic in order to show future Disney guests that they are beginning a fun and easy process. I wanted to keep the filters to a small number based only on what was necessary to move to the next step. While the former starting page required the user to select a hotel, the new design allows guests to move forward without selecting a preferred resort. This allows guests who are visiting for the first time, or that simply don’t know what they are looking for to browse all of the selections on the next page.

Availability & Selection

The next page provides all the hotel information a guest could want and need. Unlike the original hotel list page, this page shows the guests every hotel Disney offers, even if they have selected a preferred hotel. Guests can now compare, change they preferred hotel, change their dates and select their room type all in one place. Once a room type is selected, the guests will see the point breakdown for their stay, as well as more information about the room.

Resort Information

Each resort also provides an information pop-up that has an overview of the hotel, the room and point breakdown, dining options and amenities & recreation. The goal of this pop-up is to provide the guests with all the information they could need about each hotel without having to navigate to different pages. This limits the amount of research needed before going to the reservation pages, and allows for further comparison of the different resorts.

DVC Points

Once a resort has been selected, the guest will then be prompted to select the points they would like to use to book this reservation. By making the numbers large and easy to distinguish between, the guests will be able to easily see what points they can and cannot use. Another option for this page would be to make suggestions as to which combination of points would be best for each visit.