As this is the research phase I conducted research on hotel booking systems and one hotel adjacent service in the UK. To determine characteristics that are common within the hotel sector.

1. Hotel Trivago – Hotel Booking Website 

2. Booking.com – Hotel Booking Website

3. Design My Night, London – Adjacent Service to Hotel Booking Website 

4. Air Bnb – Hotel Booking Website​

I've organised the findings of the competitor benchmarking project into a comprehensive presentation. The businesses have been categorised based on their website characteristics, spanning from the main homepage layout to the specific features of a hotel booking platform.

Criteria Overview:
I conducted a thorough evaluation of the various businesses' website formats to determine the most effective approach for a hotel booking website.

1. Bookings.com  ★★★★1/2 - The homepage is designed for ease of readability. However, there's a slight drawback in terms of presenting all the hotel booking system's offers in a cohesive manner.

2. Hotel Trivago ★★★★ - The simplicity of the homepage's structure and colour scheme effectively showcases the offerings of the hotel booking system.

3. Airbnb ★★★1/2 - While maintaining a consistent brand image that draws users in, Airbnb's website lacks a cohesive colour scheme due to the presence of promotional material.

4. Design My Night ★★★1/2 - The software on Design My Night's website might seem a bit cluttered, yet it does provide users with a plethora of options in a structurally coherent manner.

This assessment provides valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor's website layout, aiding us in identifying the optimal design approach for our hotel booking website.

The PDF shows the outcome of the brief survey. The limited sample reached the initial 10-participant goal. From the limited sample randomly sampled the majority of participants had looked at hotel booking websites and were able to complete their initial task. But, as the questions were general the definition could’ve been open to interpretation. 

I ran the usability session twice with two different people exploring the hotel case studies. I adjusted the questions in the transcript to the user's prompt and noted down any things the user said.

From the usability test, I analysed the information from the research phase. Learning how to run an affinity diagram session successfully was an important skill for me as a UX professional. These sessions allowed me to sort through large volumes of data and get to the root of our findings. I organised the affinity diagram into islands focusing on the goals, habits and pain points of users. 

I learned that creating a journey map is not a purely objective process, but rather subjective. There may be gaps between the affinity diagram and the journey map, and I need to use my own judgement to fill those gaps.

My main objective is to address the issues I have uncovered during my research, which I have highlighted in my affinity diagram and customer journey map. In this project, I will be defining a high-level flow for the desktop website, focusing on one primary use case. However, before I start designing the screens, it is important that I understand how users will flow through my design.

I want to commend myself for developing a solid prototype that truly captures the essence of the project. As I review it, I can see that I've included enough detail to effectively test the high-level flow, screen layouts, and interactions. The time and effort I've invested in this project are certainly paying off, as evidenced by the comprehensive nature of the prototype.

I'm also appreciative of the feedback given, especially the suggestion to go back and enhance some screens by adding specific hotspots, particularly for elements like location. I can see the merit in this recommendation, as it would contribute to a more realistic user experience and facilitate more meaningful testing. The thought of refining the hotspots to achieve greater granularity excites me, as it aligns well with the goal of creating authentic user interaction, especially right from the homepage. I'm looking forward to the prospect of testing the prototype with actual users to gather valuable insights into its functionality.

Moreover, the recognition of the wireframes' quality and their utility for the development phase is reassuring. Ensuring that the developer has all the necessary information is crucial, and I'm glad to know that I've achieved this in my wireframes.

My projects spanned a broad spectrum, including competitive benchmarking to learn from industry leaders, conducting online surveys to understand potential customers, honing note-taking skills for effective research documentation, and mastering usability tests to gather valuable insights directly from users. I delved into data analysis, research findings, constructed customer journey maps, and meticulously designed interaction flows and prototypes for a hotel booking website. Through the annotation project, I successfully bridged the gap between design and development. This portfolio showcases my journey, equipping me with the skills and mindset to craft user-centric products that have a meaningful impact on people's lives.