A few weeks ago we Tweeted the following message:
"Experiment: You tell us the top three topic areas you would want us to blog about - we'll either write it ourselves or ask an industry bod."
The responses were very good, one of which was from steve_e:
"User experience: OTA vs Tour Ops vs Meta Sites. Be interesting to compare and see who comes out top?"
So we asked user experience consultancy Webcredible to have a crack at this - and they have compared three brands in these areas.
Here is what senior consultant Abid Warsi had to say:
For a website to have a good user experience it needs to meet its users' needs and be easy to use.
How does the user experience of these sites compare?
Tour operators
Tour operators tend to have the simplest proposition.
[Tour operators often have simpler search forms]Their products are pre-packaged up with fixed dates, durations and flights.
This creates the potential for simpler search forms and results pages. However, customers come to them for a particular type of holiday experience.
Their challenge is to successfully market and explain that holiday experience on their website.
Meta sites
Meta sites are at the other end of the complexity spectrum. They typically show a vast number of products on a single search results page.
[Some users will find Kayak's many filter options daunting]Filter options help users find the most suitable product but these can also be too complicated.
Price driven users will return to meta sites despite their complexity. However, these sites should pay extra attention to how information is visually presented and should strike the right balance between the number filter options presented and ease of use.
Online travel agencies
Online travel agencies (OTA's) have possibly the largest challenge. They cover similar territory to both tour operators and meta sites.
[Expedia has a clean and organised homepage despite offering many types of travel products]However, OTA's have a greater variety of products so there's the risk users might instead visit sites with more focussed propositions.
Many OTA's are expanding their product list e.g. to include theatre tickets or restaurant bookings.
They should ensure their homepages stay uncluttered and that it's still easy to book travel, which is what most users will be going there to do.
Users visit these sites with different goals in mind. It's vital that travel sites understand exactly what their users want.
They should also be aware of the usability challenges inherent in their particular online proposition and work to improve the user experience.
You can't really say that one type of site comes out on top in terms of user experience as each has its own advantages, challenges and difficulties.
The issue with picking a winner is that each sector has good and bad examples.
In a sense tour operators have the simplest proposition so their user journeys are often the simplest, especially when it comes to searching for a holiday.
However, the best OTA will be better than the worst tour operator.
Our travel website usability report from last year may be a good guide.
It reviewed 20 of the top travel agent and airline carrier sites for their usability and the top 5 consisted of Opodo, British Airways, Travelbag, STA Travel and Lastminute.
For comparison in this context, that's 3 OTAs and one tour operator.
NB: So, do you agree with Warsi?
They need to be easy to use but more importantly need to be a one stop shop...... If they are not they run the risk of being part of a plural search as opposed to a singular.
To amazon or not to amazon.......
Didn't really answer the question though... Who comes out top? (and why)...