New TripAdvisor design reviewed

The new TripAdvisor.co.uk design has been rolled out today.

I don’t know the intimate details of how the previous site was designed - nor what the business objectives of the new design were (I don’t like redesigns for redesigns sake – a project of this magnitude has to make a website better – not just different – and better has to be objectively measurable against business objectives).

The one objective we do have is as reported by Travolution, where Steve Kaufer, Chief Executive and co-founder, said, as paraphrased by Travolution, that the “homepage had become cluttered, principally because they wanted to add more gizmos and functionality all the time”. As to whether a business objective that is given to a journalist is actually one of the internal project objectives I will leave you to decide – but this sounds reasonable to me.

I guess that the website will have less and less importance over time as TripAdvisor is busy growing their content web services – where their reviews appear either on Expedia website – or on partner websites like Hayes & Jarvis

So we know one of the redesign objectives is to become less cluttered….. lets see whether they have succeeded…

What we have with TripAdvisor is their pre-launch visual designs (or a PR version of them) - and what they have gone live with…. This gives us an insight into the mind of the “designer” – and can uncover whether the executed design differs from the designer’s view of the new site.

I am sorry that the screen shots are not the same size…. so unless someone wants to send me full size version of the pre-release designs this is what we have got……

The new newsletter subscription box…..

…and as the designer intended… 

Looks like the business managed to clutter this one up themselves. The redesign hasn’t helped here – and its not the development team who write this text! 

The main navigation menu as went live with….

 …and as the designer intended… 

Notice how “hotel & accommodations” is now on two lines on the live site…. not exactly “uncluttered design”…. however this one is the designer’s fault…. if s/he had spelt it correctly in their original visual design (rather than Hotels & Accomodation which is shorter but incorrect) then they would not have had a wrap problem when it came to be built….. when will a spell checker be added to Photoshop?!

A hotel price panel as the designer saw it…

Lovely panel for approximate price information for a hotel….. see that “Call now to book” is equally spread on two lines – and the telephone number is nicely on a single line. See how the font sizing is very clear and clean. This has been well crafted.

…. and here how it was finally built…..

Oh dear. What happened to the telephone number? What happened to “Call now to book”? Is anyone testing anything here? The fonts are not so nice either….

Central park attraction page…..as went live with…

…..and what it was meant to look like…..

Summary
What we have here is a very modern, clean, design envisaged by the designer or design team. Good job.

However the interpretation of the design by the HTML team has not been ideal. If I was the designer I would be wanting to shout from the roof telling the world that this was not how it was meant to look.

Right now I am not sure that they have fully delivered on their vision for a less cluttered website… there is still an awful lot of work to be done. I know I am picking at detail but detail is important….. and it is a collection of detail that normally builds an impression of clutter.

I expect what has happened is that the project is massively late (based on the Travolution article where the intention was publicly stated to launch by first quarter 2007). As anyone who works in the UK travel ecommerce industry knows, Jan / Feb / March are peak sales periods for travel bookings…. which means that all large projects MUST go live by the end of October / middle of November – in order to “bed in” before Christmas…… I expect TripAdvisor has had to rush their delivery of the project… and some poor web development team (who always get less time at the end of a project but never have a deadline moved…..) have been working all hours for the last few weeks to get the site to how it currently is.

Guys – I feel for you. In fact I am assisting two clients who are in the same situation right now. At least you are live though and you can fix these things in the next release – as there probably is enough time for a “wrap up” release prior to the post Christmas peak period.

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