Atlas Ocean Voyages - Yachting Expeditions Website Design

Process

Discover

Our team held a discovery workshop to start the project, interviewing stakeholders, and target users and analyzing the current site's user experience, SEO, and competitive landscape.

Key problem areas:

1. Underutilized Website Functionality: A cluttered website with unclear value propositions makes it hard for guests to find information about Atlas and book cruises, highlighting the necessity for a better-organized navigation and a more efficient search.

2. Insufficient Support for Travel Advisors: The lack of current information and support for Travel Advisors and guests undermines booking efficiency, pointing to a need for more accessible and navigable content that supports both user groups.

3. Poor mobile experience: With nearly 60% of users on mobile devices, the current site's poor optimization for mobile highlights the urgency for streamlined mobile navigation and search capabilities to improve overall user experience.

4. Outdated Booking Flow: Guests must book cruises via phone with Travel Advisor which limits flexibility, hurting the brand's appeal and customer satisfaction.

Unique value proposition in luxury cruising space:

1. Smaller size of yachts offer a more intimate and personal experience and more access to remote locations

2. Destinations offer inclusive excursions & experiences, and genuine service.

Competitive Research

Competitors research revealed valuable insights that helped us to turn them into actionable recommendations I followed when designing flows.

1. Streamline Mobile Experience and Navigation: Reduce vertical scrolling on the Atlas homepage for mobile users and ensure page navigation is intuitive, accessible, and mobile-friendly. This approach improves the site experience, facilitates easy browsing, and accounts for the majority of users.

2. Design User-Friendly Expedition Discovery: Offer an easy-to-navigate format for exploring expeditions, with summarized key details and clear CTAs, enhance the search experience and make booking more straightforward for potential cruisers.

3. Improve Accessibility of Information and Actions: Make information and actions quickly accessible and understandable, reducing the cognitive load on users and enhancing the usability of the site.

4. Clarify Page Purpose and Prioritize Top Content: Ensure the purpose of each page is immediately clear and critical content is at the top of the user interface to capture users' attention and improve engagement.

5. Highlight Expedition Essentials: Present key expedition details clearly to support a more effective search process, enabling users to quickly find the experiences most relevant to their interests.

Creating an Immersive Expedition Discovery Experience

The research phase showed the need to improve the expedition search and discovery process. The challenge was to improve and personalize the process of finding cruises in a way that not only showcased Atlas's strengths but also offered an immersive experience for users.

I expanded the traditional search function by introducing filters that let users create their own journey, balancing luxury with Atlas's unique position among competitors. The search interface, familiar at first glance, transitions to a more interactive experience with filters laid out in a unique story-format style. This approach was informed by competitor research and Atlas's distinct offerings, maintaining familiarity while adding innovation. Initially using radio buttons for selections, I later added images to make the experience more engaging and decisions easier with visual cues.

On the desktop, I utilized the extra screen space by integrating filters directly into the search widget, allowing for seamless exploration without extra clicks. This widget stays accessible as users scroll.

I also created a hub for travelers to manage their cruise preferences, including likes, past, and upcoming trips, preparing for cruises, and tracking membership status, further personalizing the user experience.

Optimizing Mobile Navigation for Clarity and Ease

Navigating the website seamlessly was crucial, so I refined it several times and conducted user testing to ensure its effectiveness.

Given our site's complex navigation structure, we were concerned users might not realize the top navigation level was clickable because of the chevron showing a submenu. I made two versions of the mobile navigation: one less usual version with separate targets for the label (going to the landing page) and the chevron (expanding sublevels) for direct access to top-level pages, and a more standard version combining the label and chevron into a single clickable area that reveals all navigation options.

User testing confirmed our concern: most participants were confused by the label and chevron directing to different locations, not expecting the label to be interactive. Feedback also highlighted that our slide-in menu made it hard to see how different navigation levels were connected. Based on this feedback, I switched to an accordion-style navigation for a more intuitive experience. Additionally, I kept a "View all Destinations" CTA at the bottom of submenu lists from one of the initial versions, which user testing found to be intuitive and accessible.