Travel Website Ideas (Part One)
I listened to Scott Klososky’s session on website design at the recent Travel Weekly virtual tradeshow, and would like to give you a couple of my own thoughts on this topic.
I’ve had the pleasure of participating in several Travel Weekly Leadership Forums over the last year or so, and have heard Scott speak multiple times. If you ever have a chance to hear Scott speak, I highly recommend it. Not only is he a really interesting speaker, his subject matter tends to be focused on what is going to happen in the future with technology, of which we all need to be aware. He always has new and thought-provoking information (my current favorite is augmented reality – something my 15 year old son specialized in, but in a different way than Scott discusses). His data can be a little overwhelming to digest, but I always try and remind myself that not everything happens at once. I’m also a big believer in crawl-walk-run strategies. Bite off a bit at a time, make sure you execute properly at each step, and eventually you’ll get the whole picture.
Scott discussed his top 10 items you need to pay attention to when designing a website. I won’t repeat them all here, but you can find a summary at Travel Weekly. One of the things Scott mentioned is that you should always keep up-to-date with the latest design principles. But how do you keep up, and how often do design principles change? One simple idea here is to look at the websites of the largest companies both in the industry an in other industries. They have the big bucks to do focus groups, market studies, etc. You’ll see some commonalities that you can take advantage of yourself. Think about the automobile for instance. Over the years, several usability standards have emerged across all cars and manufacturers. Things like the turn signal lever is located on the steering column, where the radio is, gas pedal on the right – break on the left, etc. So that you don’t have to read a manual every time you buy or rent a new car. It’s very similar with websites – main tabs across the top or left side, etc. Consumers will probably be more comfortable navigating your website if it is familiar to what they are used to on the web. And yet you can still differentiate yourself and add you own level of customization using Scott’s techniques – thinks as simple as describing your unique specialty and capabilities prominently on the front page, above ‘the fold’.
Even the big guys change their site design strategies over time, and what was once proven to be consumer-friendly, may change. A great example is Travelocity, who in 1994 announced a major website redesign — and then earlier this year announced another. It’s interesting to read both these releases and see how some things changed, and some stayed the same. If you can remember the 1994 website (with the distinct sections of different colored backgrounds) which website do you like better – the 1994 version or the 2009 version?
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