Redesigning LuckyBowl's Booking Flow

Discover

How people book events

I had no quantitative data so I reviewed competitor sites. Because Norwegian competitors had no online booking flows, I looked at international sites. I also looked at booking flows for similar entertainment companies as well airline, hotel and holiday rental sites. This gave me ideas, inspiration and insight into booking flow design patterns.

This highlighted opportunities like:

• Offering packages to reduce cognitive load and upsell
• Being able to switch locations
  
• Being able to switch activities
• Increasing conversion rates through flexible payment options - card, Apple Pay, Vipps
• Upgrading the location finder - nearest locations, list view, searchable
• Adding information about players prior to visit - to save time later
• Ability to clear all dates
  

My target audience were parents booking birthdays or end of season celebrations. I asked them what information they would want/expect from the site and asked them to test it.

Summarising the results made it clear they expected to:

The below images show where a person clicks on the CTA "Bestill" underneath "Bursdag & feiring". They then have to scroll to choose "Bursdag" again.

• People couldn't go back in the booking flow without losing their order
• Nobody could edit any information in their order without losing it
• People couldn't check availability for different dates without repeating the booking flow.
• People were asked for their telephone number twice
• No input fields were marked as mandatory. Errors aren’t always highlighted, leaving people guessing.

The below images show parts of the existing booking flow, where from left to right:

1. Unnecessary information (name and age of jubilant) is requested at the start of the flow.
   
2. Customers choose a date, then an activity. Followed by the nr of series/games, and then a time. The only way to check availability on different dates is to repeat a booking.
3. The edit button returns a person to the page where they choose an event. They lose all the information they've entered.

Positives included:

• Use of progressive exposure
• Up-selling add-ons
• The order overview at the top of the page
• Confirmation that an activity had been added to an order

Develop

Solve the problem

Using the Scamper brainstorming method I came up with the following ideas:

• Day and time slots with a calendar option.
• Creating packages for events (reduces cognitive load) and enables the business to upsell.
• Differentiating between booking an activity or an event.
• Differentiating between food-related extras and add-on activities.
• Adding age to guest picker - automates the 18+ option.
• Flexible dates flow? Reverse order for those who are flexible with their location.
  
• Remove the unnecessary telephone number screen.
• Provide different payment options - Apply Pay, Vipps etc - increases conversion rates.
• Add in a "Start again/Clear all" ghost button.
• Enable people to enter the players information prior to their visit.
• Auto-calculate the time to play based on the number of players.
• Update location list to a more visual card-list.
• Visual graphics/tags for promotions.
• Compare different locations i.e what they have to offer/availability.
• A visual order summary for sharing.
• Default location with a “Not your location? Link (when a user allows the site to use their location).
• Location finder - with what's on tonight.

I chose to prioritise the following:

• Day and time slots with a calendar option
• Packages for events
• Differentiating between booking an activity or an event
• Differentiating between food-related extras and add-ons
• Defining age in the guest picker
• Removing the unnecessary telephone number screen
• Providing different payment options - Apply Pay, Vipps
• Adding in a "Clear all" button
• Updating the location list to a more visual card-list

After sketching paper wireframes, I built low fidelity wireframes to test my ideas. I first used drop down menus (image 1) assuming they'd suit mobile, but testing showed a person had to scroll far when there were many options. I replaced them with buttons (image 4). For one or two choices, like the number of bowling series, buttons were quick. For longer lists, like locations, the button opens a new window with a more visual list and room for birthday packages.

To help people check availability quickly, I seperated activities and events with tabs. I re-ordered the flow so that they select first and identify later. So they choose location, event type, number of guests, date, then the activity/nr of series, followed by dates/times. After testing I saw they were choosing a date on the first page, then availability on the third page. So, I moved "Velg en dato (Choose a date)" to the third page. I also changed the 3-day tabs to 3-day buttons, with an additional button to open up the calendar on the same page. The sixth image below shows the updated screen.

Testing showed people weren't seeing the drinks tab on the food/drinks page. So I removed the tabs with separate pages. People also expected the steppers to be clickable and take them to the stage they selected, so I made them work that way.

Before further testing, I ran a heuristic review of the redesign and made the following changes:

Additional Iterations included:

• Updating the tabs to a simple underline and bold text.
• Simplifying availability to simply busy or not available.
• An option to choose to eat before, in-between or after an activity.
  
• Changing the activities to reflect the location chosen - making it easy to see that an activity wasn't available at that location.
• Tagging more than 1 series/game etc with “popular” (social proof).
• A visible time period to book the reservation within.

Next steps