Sarah Bradley | Visitor Booking

Project:

Visitor Booking

The Problem

The legacy visitor booking module lacked the modern look and feel expected by our customers, and the golfers who use the product. It was not responsive to mobile and tablet devices despite 65% of usage coming from these devices. The overall user experience was poor, but could be improved through a new design and the adoption of modern UX principles.

Internally, the system had a lot of technical debt, making it difficult to make updates and improvements. The code used PHP 5.3, which is end of life.

The legacy product lacked integration of trade times (hot deals) and open competitions meaning users have to use separate products to make different types of bookings. We wanted users be able to book casual, trade and open rounds easily and in one place.

Research

Scoring within BRS Members Module — Visitor Booking Module User Personas

Google Analytics data analysis - we wanted to ensure that we were crafting an experience for the modern golfer - not just the 55+ male dempgraphic that is traditionally associated with the sport in the UK.
User testing of the existing product - we had users go through the process of booking a round of golf through the legacy visitor booking module and observed them, noting any pain points and frustrations.
Unmoderated user interviews - we interviewed golf clubs to see where they thought the feature gap was in the legacy product, and to see what frustrations they had with using the current system.

Google Analytics Analysis

Requirements

Mobile first, and fully responsive.
Modern design, without alienating our core demographic who are change adverse.
The ability to book both trade times (hot deals) and regular tee times at once.
the facility to book golfing packages, e.g. a round of golf, a buggy and lunch.
Streamlined and simplified booking - a 5 step booking process is cumbersome on mobile.
For commercial reasons it was decided that we would only offer the new Visitor Booking Module with our own bespoke payments solution through stripe. Many customers of the exisitng legacy software were with alternative payment providers such as WorldPay, so the new solution had to be enticing enough to convince them to change.

Solution

visitor booking module — Visitor Booking Module Wireframes

We kicked off the design process with some brainstorming in order to generate as many ideas as possible! As golf is quite a traditional game and our core demographic, some of the more off the wall ideas were shelved.

Initially we decided that we were going to use a course image from each club for a background image for each visitor booking module as a means of personalising, however the quality of images that could be obtained was quite poor so this idea was shelved.

From initial sketches we decided on the best approach and created wireframes and a wireframe prototype. We tested this with a select group of our most vocal customers and used our learnings to inform the high fidelity mockup design.

Testing

We beta tested with 10 clubs for initial feedback.

The streamlined 3 step payment process wad a big hit - very positive feedback.
One consideration we had not thought about for open competitions was the fact that members of the golf club were entitled to reduced entry fees. Despite being a "visitor" booking engine, this was still how the majority of clubs sold their open competitions. We decided to add login functionality so that members could avail of reduced pricing. This facility could also be used for tour operator functions that were planned for a later phase.
Users loved that the experience was consistant across desktop and mobile devices.
Clubs wanted additional personalisation - eg the ability to change the colour of the navigation/footer to their club colours. In the current design there is the abilty to upload a logo, their location via a Google Map, and a blurb about the club. Further personalisation would be considered at a later stage.
The pricing structure was not as clear as it could have been eg. insteaed of showing the price per player if booking for more than one golfer, show the total or both.

Outcome

Signficant reduction in support calls.
95% of clubs decided to convert to the new Visitor Booking website and chagne to 'BRS Golf Payments' as their payment provider.
Clubs reported an increase in bookings for open competitions.
Time to completion for bookings increased by 68%.

Live Product - Leominster Golf Club