TravelPost is a good example of best practice for branding and usability. The site is simple, friendly and comprehensible at first sight.
On the landing page, three blocks of content serve as a starting point: “Unbiased Hotel Reviews”, “New Travel Blogs” and “Explore Travel Destinations”, plus there is a sidebar with contextual navigation. Atop of the main information you have a prominent search bar, and above it all you have a global navigation with logical taxonomy. This flexible IA gives you options to explore places virtually, but you can also explore opinions, photo blogs and ratings. In its best sense, TravelPost is a site about exploration, a voyage in itself.
I think this all makes perfectly sense. You probably came to the site because you wanted to look up a place. Your main interest is to look up information about a trip you are planning on, or to look up a couple of places you had in mind. At the same time you don't mind being allured to look into other places, because the site applies a well balanced mixture of push and pull. Commercial offers live in harmony with folksonomy.
Before creating a website like TravelPost, you have to ask yourself a couple of simple questions. And you have to be not afraid of the answers. Take them as your road map for marketing, branding and usability. Being honest to yourself and to your client can actually give you an advantage when your site hits the market of competing websites.
What are the most important questions?
- Why do people come to travel-websites? To book a hotel right away, or to spend time traveling before the actual trip?
- Before they will book a room in a hotel or resort, what will convince them to choose this particular offering over a different one?
- Is pricing the only or most important issue for your visitors?
Pricing has a certain relevance if it comes to city traveling, weekend trips and short business trips. If you are traveling to a foreign country and you are staying there for more than one night, you want something decent, reliable, comfortable. And you care more about "what can I do in this neighbourhood" than about low rates.
Conclusion
Combining folksonomy with brand values is what makes the true art of creating conversation websites. The example of TravelPost shows how you can build a solid foundation for your branding platforms, by using best practice in design, user experience, and most of it all by not being afraid of putting people's opionions and commercial offers on the same page.
Being unobtrusive and not pushy about your offers is paramount. People have a tendency to accept ads (text and links) more easily once they are allured by your site content. Microsoft's Expedia, for an example, is considered a leader in travel websites. But if you compare the two examples, which one appears friendlier to you?
On Expedia, the most prominent element is "Plan your trip, book a flight and a hotel". That might be of importance to me at some point, but I first want to find out about the place I'm visiting. I could look it up at Wikipedia, but given its straight forward name, I would expect Expedia to give me all information I want, providing a great travel experience in itself.
- Resources
- SimpleBits has helped redesigning TravelPost and creating a better user experience
- Microsoft Expedia
- TravelPost
Brand 6
Brand Building 3
Brand Loyalty 7
Brand Strategy 5
Communication 10
Consulting 1
Experience 11
Interaction 5
Patterns 4
Usability 7
May 19, 2006
When I started out with the idea of core, it all seemed very simple and obvious. The idea was to strip off unnecessary weight, to simplify and reduce a communications venture to its essence, its core. At the same time I saw an opportunity in this philosophy: Let companies, brands, products communicate with their very core. In my experience, a certain kind of pragmatism and a focussed output is what most clients want. Focussed output has a lot to do with economical reasons, but it is also obvious that a clearer message, a streamlined branding idea is what customers understand more easily.