
Overview
Using design thinking, we addressed key challenges like user drop-offs and offline dependency. By optimizing every stage of the vacationer’s journey—from discovery to post-stay—we redefined how groups book holidays online. The result? A seamless, user-friendly platform where travellers can craft the perfect getaway!
Key takeaways
Reimagining how people discover holiday rentals.
Designing group experiences.
Scripting new norms of transparency & trust.
Charting a complete digital experience.
Problem-solving via technology-enabled solutions.
01
Reimagining how people discover holiday rentals.
Our aim was for travellers to find villas that perfectly matched the kind of vacation they wished to take faster. So, we reimagined the search-process by introducing features like grouping ‘Collections’ of similar properties together, displaying amenities through icons instead of lists, creating an intuitive search-bar, and introducing nudges that help keep the user on course.
02
Designing group experiences
Booking holiday villas online can be a cumbersome task, particularly when the booking involves larger groups with varied needs. To add to that, if the booking is taking place on a mobile screen, which lacks the freedom of easy toggling between multiple tabs, a clear visual design is essential. Based on our consumer research, we introduced some features that could facilitate remote decision-making, particularly for groups.









03
Scripting new norms of transparency & trust
Keeping in mind that the average ticketing price for StayVista properties is relatively high, it was essential to establish trust. We decided to deliver crucial information upfront in the listing cards as well as in the inside pages. This played a key role in reducing offline dependency.










04
Charting a complete digital experience
To reduce offline dependency, we introduced features like ‘pre-recorded voice note’, where villa managers can help users with last-mile directions, nudges that guide the user throughout the booking journey, and a booking modification feature that is easy to navigate making it a complete digital experience, up to and beyond the last mile.



05
Problem-solving via technology-enabled solutions
Keeping the consumer needs in mind, the website building had a CSS-based approach with a well-structured design system and modular components. The entire technology focussed on improving page loading time, preparing for integration readiness and ensuring that the website performed well while providing a seamless experience across pages.
Enabling cross-platform integration
Since StayVista is a content-heavy website, the focus was on delivering a simple, clean and straightforward website without too many heavy animations and on-scroll interactions.
One of the strategies toward creating a website that loaded quickly was to rely heavily on CSS for most of the animations and interactions. We explored ways of using CSS instead of Java script for certain behaviours like tab-switching for which we would normally use Java script. Preferring CSS to Java script also helped reduce the First Contentful Paint time for the website.
We created a design system which offered a library of predefined, reusable components. This design system accelerated the pace of building the website and enhanced consistency platform-wide.
Reducing load-time
The front-end for the StayVista website was to be handed over to the client for integration. So, a lot of the development was driven toward creating robust components that wouldn’t break when integrated.
We created style-specific as well as behaviour-specific components which helped immensely in improving the overall quality and performance of the code. This also helped when a common behaviour needed to be changed across differently styled components.
Some components like the stay planner and the calendar component were quite complex and served as learning opportunities to extend our coding abilities.
References
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Trafton, A 2014, In the blink of an eye, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, viewed 8th December 2022,. https://news.mit.edu/2014/in-the-blink-of-an-eye-0116
Mukherjee, N, Dicks, LV, Shackelford, GE. et al.2016, Comparing groups versus individuals in decision making: a systematic review protocol. Environ Evidence, vol.5 DOI: 10.1186/s13750-016-0066-7
Britannica 2022, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. 'Gestalt psychology', Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., Chicago. https://www.britannica.com/science/Gestalt-psychology
Structured decision making 2013, Step 3: Alternatives, Structured decision making, viewed 8th December 2022,. https://www.structureddecisionmaking.org/steps/step3alternatives/
Tomlinson, EC, & Schnackenberg, A 2022, The effects of transparency perceptions on trustworthiness perceptions and trust, Journal of Trust Research, vol. 12, pp 1025. https://www.tandfonline.com/doicitedby/10.1080/21515581.2022.2060245?scroll=top&needAccess=true&role=tab