Case Study: Designing the Celtic Manor Resort Quick Book Feature
Overview
The Celtic Manor Resort is a prestigious five-star destination offering luxury hotel stays, world-class golf breaks, and diverse leisure experiences. Given the growing demand for seamless online bookings, the resort identified an opportunity to streamline its booking process and improve conversion rates, especially on mobile devices.
To address this, I was tasked with creating a Quick Book feature, a tool that would allow users to search and book hotel stays or golf breaks from anywhere on the website. Taking a mobile-first approach, the design needed to ensure smooth, user-friendly functionality across all devices.
Challenges
Before the Quick Book feature, the booking flow involved multiple steps that often interrupted the user’s journey, especially on mobile. Users had to navigate to specific booking pages, leading to high abandonment rates and missed opportunities for conversions.
The key challenges included:
Fragmented Booking Flow: Users needed a consistent, easy way to initiate bookings regardless of their current page on the website.
Mobile Experience: With a large portion of users accessing the site on mobile, the existing booking flow was cumbersome and not mobile-optimised.
Complex Service Offering: Balancing the needs of users booking hotel stays with those booking golf breaks required a streamlined yet flexible interface.
A simple user journey from the perspective of 2 customers
Objectives
The primary objectives for the Quick Book feature were to:
Create a mobile-first booking tool that enables users to quickly search and book accommodations and golf packages without leaving their current page.
Deliver seamless functionality across devices, ensuring desktop, tablet, and mobile users all experience a smooth booking process.
Increase mobile conversion rates for hotel and golf bookings by simplifying the booking journey and reducing user friction.
Design Process
1. User Research and Insights
The design process began with user research to understand current pain points and the needs of both hotel and golf customers. We gathered insights on user behaviour across devices, identifying high drop-off points within the existing booking flow.
Key findings included:
Users wanted to quickly check availability and book without needing to navigate away from their current page.
Mobile users, especially those seeking last-minute bookings, needed a booking flow that was fast, simple, and distraction-free.
Users expected consistent functionality across devices, with a particular need for mobile-friendly search and booking.
2. Mobile-First Approach
We adopted a mobile-first approach to ensure that the Quick Book feature would deliver on the small screen and scale smoothly to larger devices. Starting with mobile allowed us to focus on essential elements, prioritising clarity and ease of use over complex visuals.
Key design considerations included:
Streamlined Search Bar: A prominent, easy-to-locate search bar was designed to allow users to select either “Hotel” or “Golf” bookings instantly, minimising cognitive load.
Optimised Form Fields: To make the booking process quick, we limited the number of fields, enabling users to see availability and confirm their bookings in a few taps.
Persistent Accessibility: The Quick Book tool was designed to appear as a floating button on every page, making it instantly accessible at any point during the user’s journey.
3. Prototyping and User Testing
Low-fidelity wireframes were developed and tested with users to gather early feedback. This phase helped validate the placement of the Quick Book tool, its mobile usability, and the simplicity of the booking steps.
After refining the design based on feedback, we moved to high-fidelity prototypes to test on actual devices, ensuring smooth transitions and interactions. Users responded positively to the streamlined process, particularly the ability to check availability without multiple steps.
4. Cross-Device Compatibility
As part of the design testing, we validated the feature’s usability on desktop and tablet devices to ensure a consistent experience. The design team ensured that while the mobile interface remained simple, the desktop version offered a more expansive view to accommodate additional details, making the tool intuitive and responsive across all screen sizes.
Outcome
The new Quick Book feature significantly improved the user experience and conversion rates for Celtic Manor Resort:
Double the Mobile Conversion Rate: Following implementation, mobile conversions more than doubled for both hotel reservations and golf breaks, meeting and exceeding initial targets.
Enhanced User Engagement: Users were able to book directly from anywhere on the site, leading to a more cohesive, uninterrupted experience.
Higher Retention Rates: With the simplified, mobile-friendly interface, users were more likely to complete bookings rather than abandon the site, resulting in a noticeable increase in overall bookings.
Conclusion
The Quick Book feature transformed the booking process for Celtic Manor Resort, offering a streamlined, accessible tool that significantly improved the user experience. By focusing on a mobile-first design, The team successfully met the needs of the growing mobile user base, contributing to a marked increase in conversion rates.
A visual image showing the new 'quick book' feature on the website