Booking Platform
PRODUCT DESIGN
Reduced price-surprise drop-offs by 80% through transparent fee architecture and progressive disclosure.
DOMAIN
Travel-tech
ROLE
UX/UI designer
YEAR
2023-2024
Product Context
Live crypto-native travel platform where users book hotels with optional payment with USDT/BTC. The audience: crypto-native travellers aged 25–40, comfortable with complex financial tools but expecting the smoothness of Booking.com.
The Problem
Users were abandoning at checkout because the final price differed significantly from what they saw in search results. Hidden fees, unclear crypto conversion rates, and no visible cancellation policy before payment were killing trust at the final step.
My Role & Team
I worked as part of a team — alongside the CMO, product managers and developers. I owned the design process: research, IA, wireframes, UI, and handoff.
THE APPROACH
01
Discover
Audit the existing flow and analyze real user behavior — funnels, session recordings, and interviews — to find where and why users drop off.
02
Hypothesize
Turn research findings into specific, testable hypotheses about what's causing the problem and what might fix it.
03
Redesign
Design the solution with intent — every decision tied back to a hypothesis, not aesthetic preference alone.
04
Test
Validate the redesign with real users before full rollout, catching issues while they're still cheap to fix.
05
Ship
Hand off a production-ready design, backed by evidence of what changed and why it works.
06
Measure
Track the metrics after launch to confirm the fix actually worked — and catch anything that needs a second pass.
Research Methods
Mixpanel funnel analysis (identified exact drop-off points across the booking flow)
User interviews (n=5, recruited from existing customers)
Hotjar session recordings
Competitive analysis: Booking.com, Travala, Airbnb
Heuristic evaluation of the existing flow
Key Insights
Three separate drop-off points — property page, checkout entry, and payment — each with a distinct behavioral cause.
10 of 12 observed users opened a competing platform in a new tab mid-session — consistently, at the same moment on the property page — revealing an external validation loop the platform was losing every time.
Price revealing was the most emotionally charged complaint — users didn't describe checkout fees as surprising, they described them as deliberately deceptive.
Analysed Booking.com, Airbnb, Hotels.com, and Expedia — focused specifically on trust signal design, pricing architecture, and checkout flow patterns.
User flow
To ensure the product delivers value not only on the interface level but also on the business level, I structured the user journey using the AARRR framework.
01
Acquisition
Users enter the platform through search and landing pages. My focus was reducing friction to start the search process.
02
Activation
The key activation moment was when users successfully found a relevant hotel. I improved this by simplifying filters and making pricing transparent.
03
Retention
Retention was driven by trust and usability. By reducing price surprises and simplifying checkout, users were more likely to return and reuse the platform.
04
Referral
After a successful booking, users were encouraged to share referral codes, helping organic growth.
05
Revenue
Revenue was directly tied to checkout completion. By redesigning the checkout experience, I increased completion rate from 27% to 84%, directly impacting business results.
Information Architecture
Restructured 7-step flow → 4-step with progressive disclosure. Price breakdown (including crypto conversion) shown at Step 1, not revealed at checkout.
Design decisions
I redesigned the results page based on Nielsen's usability heuristics, focusing on clarity, control, and reducing cognitive load. Prices were displayed as total-inclusive (taxes and fees included) from the first result to increase transparency and trust.
Property page
The property page was restructured around a new information hierarchy: verified photo gallery → trust signals (review score, verified-stay badge) → key amenities → room selection → persistent pricing bar. This eliminated the moment of 'price surprise' that previously occurred only at checkout — by the time users reached payment, the final number was already familiar.
Checkout panel
A persistent booking summary panel — visible throughout all checkout steps on both mobile and desktop — displayed the full cost breakdown (nightly rate, taxes, fees, total) from the moment a room type was selected. Nightly rate and total were shown simultaneously, clearly labeled. Nothing new appeared at payment.
Design system
The visual system was built around a clean, light-mode travel aesthetic — a white-dominant canvas with high-quality property photography as the primary UI element. Deep teal for primary actions. Warm amber exclusively for trust indicators: review scores, verified badges, price highlights. A humanist sans-serif typeface balanced warmth with readability across information-dense layouts. Tabular numerals for all pricing figures — ensuring column alignment and scan-readability at the moments users are making financial decisions.
THE OUTCOME
checkout conversion rate — up from 27%, after redesigning the flow around upfront pricing transparency.
fewer users reporting price surprise at payment
A NOTE FROM THE DESIGNER
"The best pricing doesn't hide until checkout. It shows up early, stays consistent, and never surprises — because trust is built long before the payment screen."