Are travel companies burying their heads in the sand when it comes to user experience and accessibility?
Account Director
25 minute read
Our assessment of the usability and accessibility issues found on popular travel booking websites.
Executive Summary
As statistics show that more consumers than ever are booking holidays online, the travel sector is one which needs to pay particular attention to its digital offering. Currently, the majority of travel companies have their own websites; yet, in a world where we’re trying to appeal to both tech-natives and those newly connected or less familiar with the digital sphere, care needs to be taken when designing these websites to ensure they offer a smooth user journey for everyone. Further to this, as two million people live with sight loss in the UK according to RNIB – a figure estimated to rise to nearly four million by 2050 – we need to consider and design for these users too.
In our research, we explored the user experience of 10 top travel websites. We looked at their usability, whether they were easy to navigate on different devices, how good the booking process was, and whether they were accessible.
“It pays massively for travel companies to consider the needs of blind and partially sighted people, particularly when you look at the monetary aspect of what these companies could be missing out on by ignoring millions of users” - Terry Hawkins, RNIB
- The UK spends £31 billion on international tourism a year, the fourth highest in the world after China, Germany, and the USA – according to the World Tourism Organisation
- The leading association of travel agents and tour operators, the ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents), found that between 2014 and 2015, 89% of UK holidaymakers booked a holiday online
- The previous ABTA Consumer Holiday Trends Report, released in 2014, found that 68% of people took at least one UK holiday in 2014 and 53% took at least one holiday abroad
- Clearly, consumers are booking more holidays than ever and are increasingly moving online to do so
- In this report, 10 top travel websites were scored out of a possible 35 points for their usability, accessibility, and ease of use across devices. The websites included: Booking.com, Co-operative Travel, Airbnb, Expedia, Skyscanner, Laterooms.com, Lastminute.com, British Airways, On the Beach, and Virgin Atlantic
- Skyscanner came out on top with 28, while Co-operative Travel came bottom, scoring 17. The average score across the sites was 23
- Out of the 10 sites, Booking.com and Laterooms.com scored the highest for their booking processes
You can download our full usability assessment here.
We also looked in-depth at the accessibility (how easy to use they are for those with differing abilities) of the websites through testing with an independent consultant. Molly Watt has Usher syndrome, which means she was born deaf and is registered blind. Molly is a strong advocate of using technology to help those with differing abilities have independence. Take a look at our user research video with Molly to see the full range of issues we encountered on the tested websites.