As a UX researcher for Expedia’s partner team*, I’ve conducted multiple qualitative/quantitative research for Expedia websites and apps independently. Onboarding photo research is one of them.
Background: In the past, the partner (e.g., vacation rental house owners) onboarding process of their properties took weeks or months, which was really inconvenient. The team was tasked with redesigning the onboarding photo experience to make a quicker, smoother, self-service experience for vacation rental (VR) partners.
Research Goals:
- The research first explores participant’s experience with the photo taking, storing, and onboarding process.
- Secondly, this research seeks to understand what photo experience flow resonates more with participants.
- Lastly, we’d like to know any usability issues and areas where participants might need help.
Research Method: 60-minute remote moderated usability testing per session
- 7 potential or current VR partners who have onboarded their properties on competitors’ websites or Vrbo.
- Participants were asked to answer questions about their experience around the photo preparation and onboarding process. Then, they were asked to perform tasks on two developed prototypes (A and B) hosted on AWS in a counterbalanced order.
Challenges
1. How do we share prototypes with remote research participants?
Typical remote mobile usability testing tools in Expedia at that time (Figma interactive prototype + usertesting.com desktop sharing, the researcher gives mouse control to the participants) did not work for this project:
- The team, especially engineers and designers, wanted to see real user interaction with the mobile phone rather than just clicking through a mobile version of the website on a desktop.
- Sharing screen and using mouse control by Usertesting.com on mobile was not intuitive
The Figma prototype did not show well on different sizes of mobile phones
Solutions:
- I explored different ways and communicated with the design team and the engineering team to get agreement on getting developed prototypes + Zoom to share participants’ mobile screens directly
- I found an approved external server to host the prototypes so that it could be shared with external participants
2. Who provides photos?
Plan A: Expedia sends photos to users ahead of time.
- Pro: control the photo quality and research time.
- Con: burden of participants
Plan B: Users prepare their own property photos.
- Pro: find their own photos easily. Can test the code.
- Con: uncontrol of the photo quality and research time
Solution:
- After careful consideration, I decided that users prepared their own property photos for the research, and we also provided backup prototypes with embedded photos once the user clicked the “upload photo” button.
Main Findings
1. Most participants took property photos by themselves using smartphones and were satisfied. More than half used their phones to upload photos during the onboarding process.
2. Spaces and Categories on prototype A were disassociated for some participants. They didn’t realize those categories were spaces they created in the earlier steps but expected to add or create their own categories on categorization pages.
Recommendation: Consider adding explanations on both the space-creation and categorization pages that categories are the spaces they created.
3. The “uncategorized” on the top (means unfinished) and bottom (means lacking a category) confused some participants. Some participants categorized all photos even when none fit. 
Recommendations: Consider using design to distinguish the two meanings for “uncategorized” (I.e., as unfinished or lacking a category). For example, remove the top text “Uncategorized” and only show “Categorize the rest” photos buttons. Change the “uncategorized” category to “other.”
4. Preference of prototype A or B was mixed
Recommendations: In light of the potential requirements of conventional lodging partners (such as hotels) for a unified onboarding process, coupled with the minimal usability challenges identified in prototype B that are easily addressable, I propose exploring the implementation of bulk uploading and categorization flow (prototype B).
Impact
- The team implemented almost all the findings/recommendations in the MVP.
- The documents I created of tips and learnings for remote mobile usability testing with developed prototypes became a popular reference for the researcher community.
*The Expedia partner teams are working on websites and apps that serve hotels, vacation rentals, flights, cruises, etc., to help them put information on Expedia platforms so travelers can book their properties for travel.