experience is everything
When we collaborated with The Old Clare, our mission was to boost engagement without losing its signature aesthetic. From a modest visitor exploration, we now see nearly half diving deeper into the site, with a standout 21% conversion on the Rooms pages. And while the site's overall conversion has nearly doubled, we're still on the journey to further refinement.
Year
2022
Services
Usability Testing, Heuristics Evaluation, UX Audit, User Experience Design
In Collaboration With
Fellow Agency redeveloped the website
Client
The Old Clare Hotel
In the initial design, an unconventional menu layout left just 34% of users successfully finding subpages. The divided menu, with Hotel on the left and Clare on the right, perplexed most visitors. Users were often seen hesitantly clicking around, frequently toggling between the two menus, indicating confusion about where to find their desired information.
Original menu design on desktop
Original mobile menus, with two hamburger icons on either side of the screen
Menu links became extremely difficult for users to see when certain images were scrolled behind it, due to the menus floating appearance.
The booking button at the bottom of the page was being overlooked. Heat map data revealed its position was in a largely inactive zone. Additionally its floating design made it subtly blend into background visuals, causing most website visitors to miss it.
To maintain the website's design yet enhance usability, we revamped the menu layout. The top links were simplified to Menu on the left for instant clarity, and Book on the right for better visibility. The new menus links are set against a contrasting backdrop, with a translucent background behind the primary header to boost visibility, all the while preserving the site's distinct look.
Finding room details to aid booking decisions proved challenging for users. The Room Information tab, positioned inconsistently compared to other menus, frequently went unnoticed. Its text, blending into background photographs, added to user frustrations as they struggled to access vital room insights.
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The updated design included displaying all room details directly on the page, allowing users to seamlessly scroll through the information.
Users were presented with an arrow cursor when first landing on the website. Usability studies showed users repeatedly clicking the right side of the screen. Despite initial plans to introduce a different cursor, we ultimately decided on a conventional option for more clarity.
We embedded clear call-to-actions on every room page, paired with feature prompts. Following our modifications, post-launch data showed an impressive 21% conversion rate on users that viewed Rooms pages.
After our subsequent enhancements, the website has demonstrated significant progress, boasting an overall conversion rate of 2.7%, a marked rise from its initial 1.5%. Yet, in the dynamic world of user experience, there's always room for refinement. We believe that with further testing and iterative improvements, we can push the site's performance to even greater heights.
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