Life’s a beach

From the start, I’ll derail real quick and let you know I don’t like a lot of travel sites. I think the Orbitz site design is wacky (I’ve also read horror stories about their customer service), Hotwire’s home page is a little too much for me and Expedia is just kind of goofy to me as well. I’m most loyal to Kayak.com. The logic behind the user experience is sound, the design is simple and it does a great job convincing me that it is doing everything it can to find me the cheapest airfare, simply by keeping the whole experience as straightforward as possible. I realize I might not be the target user for the broader travel service sites I initially disregarded, but I think my opinion will stand until I need to book a family vacation.

Myidealbeach.com is a microsite created by the Orbitz team with the purpose of providing users a quick, yet thoughtful way to be presented with beach destination suggestions.

The experience starts with the landing page designed on a tan sand backdrop and simple copy explaining the mini-voyage you’re about to go on in order to find the ultimate beach vacation. The copy is simple, played to the site theme well and easy to read; the copy is just convincing and encouraging enough to build curiosity to explore deeper into the site. There’s no global navigation, and only one button to click in order to proceed.

A sloshing wave appears at the top of the screen, as ocean sounds play in the background, two effects that thread through the entire experience. Once you start planning, you’re asked three simple questions: who’s traveling, what vacation activities are you interested in, and what offerings would your ideal beach hotel include.

The cleverness in this site is when asked about what activities you want to participate in and the hotel amenities that interest you, you’re presented with the options by a group of objects that wash ashore. For my interests, I selected (up to four): dice (gambling), camera (culture), bait (fishing), disco ball (nightlife). For hotel options, I chose: cucumber slices (spa), VIP pass (all-inclusive), mini-umbrella (waiter service), aqua sock (water sports).

And that was it. Based on my inputs, four hotels were presented to me, each with a thumbnail view of the hotel, and an explanation of why the hotel fits my needs, what the hotel doesn’t have that I might want, and other things that might appeal to me.

The user flow is near seamless; you can e-mail a friend, modify, start over, and are guided along the way. As you progress, the current page washes away and the new page is loaded as new objects spill ashore. In 12 enjoyable clicks, I’m presented with results relevant to me.

Some brave travelers like to shape their own vacation, talking to trusted sources, searching all over the web to research and determine the perfect vacation; others can be either overwhelmed or unmotivated by the process that is more or less required in order to decide which coastline to wedge sand between their toes. I think Myidealbeach.com is at the minimum an attractive first step for the first group and attractive solution for the second group.

Myidealbeach.com