Over the years Hotels.com has had many differing illustration styles with no central concept or branding treatment. Design teams have worked within the scope of their skillsets without any overarching brand guidance and could sometimes result in an incohesive user experience, depending on the user journey. The aim of this project was to change all that.
There has always been a percentage of customers dropping out of the booking flow at the point of contact, and research has shown that it’s from a general subconscious worry about spending not specific to organising holidays. Adding illustration is a chance to put customers at ease by including subtle humour and a little humanity to the experience instead of any tried and tested jarring, lighthearted messaging making jokes while customers are parting with hard earned money.
The illustration style needed to be replicated by any designer so I worked from various angles of easy to replicate hand drawn styles to those based on photography and also assets made from geometric shapes. We tested various types of personalities for people, people of different backgrounds and lifestyles, inanimate objects and tried out introducing animals as a format. I also made sure that the technique for creating illustrations of people was scalable enough to be globally inclusive.
“So unique! I’ve never seen these kinds of ideas in the world of travel” – UX Research Participant
Jesse Gant – Sr. Director Global UX, Hotels.com
