Carolina Design Realty

Overview

Carolina Designs Realty (CDR) represents Outer Banks vacation homes for short-term rentals. (It is like an Airbnb for the Outer Banks.) They match homeowners with vacation-seeking families and friends.

Key Goal & Timeline

  • Update the website to position itself more competitively, reduce PPC spending and reflect current desktop and mobile design standards.

  • 6 months (includes development)

Responsibilities

  • Stakeholder Interviews

  • User Interviews

  • Personas

  • User research

  • Information Architecture

  • Task Flows

  • Checkout Wireframes

  • Initial Mockups for testing

  • Adaptive Visual Design

Process

  • Conducted stakeholder interviews

  • PET™ (persuasion, emotion, trust) user interviews

  • Developed user personas

  • Identified drivers and obstacles (based on PET™ research) that either encourage or hinder users from purchasing phones or upgrading plans

  • Formulated hypotheses regarding use d’ decision-making processes

  • Created a framework of factors that facilitate the decision to lease a house

  • Finalized user personas

  • Developed task flows for booking a house

  • Created three mockups; tested concepts with 30 users

  • Conducted preference testing with three mockup concepts

  • Assessed the results

  • Mapped the information architecture

  • Designed a task flow for checkout

  • Created an adaptive website.

UX Methods Used

  • Stakeholder Interviews

  • User Interviews

  • User Research

  • PET™ Research

  • Ecosystem Creation

  • Personas

  • Customer Journey

  • Task flows

  • Information Architecture

  • Navigation

  • Prototyping

  • Wireframing

  • Adaptive visual design

Outcome

The site was launched and is currently doing over 70k page views a month. Sales have increased by 50%, resulting in 47% ($3.7M) revenue growth in 3 months.

UX Research: Ecosystem:

Factors that contributed to decision-making when booking a vacation rental were explored.

Information Architecture

  • Defines navigation and guides the user’s journey

  • A site audit was conducted, and new architecture was developed

  • Items outlined in red below require content

  • I used a legend where orange indicated needed copy

User Flow

Mockups

Mockups based on the results of stakeholder interviews, PET™ research, and user interviews were utilized to evaluate initial concepts. These provided insights into what succeeded and what did not, serving as the foundation for the final design.

  • Homepage – 3 versions

  • Search criteria page

  • Search results page

  • Property page

  • Share property page

  • Comparison page

  • Share comparison page

Visual Design

Search Page

Users arrived at this page from the homepage. All the users tested liked the page.

  • The search criteria included everything users needed to find a home.

  • I implemented a “No required fields” message and backend that users appreciated, as it alleviated the frustration of encountering error messages.

Homepage

I utilized Bootstrap’s 12-column grid for the desktop site and incorporated a large hero image that had been tested with users.

Search Results

  • The displayed results met users’ expectations. 

  • I created the filter with sliders, checkboxes, and accordion menus, allowing users to expand and close sections to reveal additional choices.

  • I included prices per bedroom and per night, which helped users skip the math and informed their group about how much they needed to pay.

  • The camera icon was appreciated as a quick way to view photos, while the map icon directed users to a Google Map API.

  • Users valued the ability to compare up to 10 homes. Although the mobile site did not offer this option, the language used was positive: “You can compare houses side by side on your Tablet or Desktop computer.”

Property Details

  • Clicking on a search result displayed the property details. 

  • Users appreciated the large image of the house and the thumbnails for viewing the photo gallery.

  • They easily found the tabs at the top and expected the page to scroll based on their selection.

  • I kept the header fixed so users could conveniently click on another tab.

  • Users felt that the information provided was well-balanced and useful for decision-making.