Product design for Expedia: travelers, trip-planning pain points and first features

Design Expedia, the online travel service where people search, compare and book flights, hotels and other places to stay, rental cars and vacation packages. Approach it as a product design problem: decide which travelers the product should serve first, identify the problems they run into while planning and booking a trip, choose the features that solve them, and explain how you would judge whether the product is succeeding. ```hint Follow the whole trip Booking is a single moment in a long journey. Sketch what your chosen travelers go through from deciding where to go until they are home again, and find the stage where they struggle most before you touch search and checkout. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Should I design an online travel booking service from scratch, or improve Expedia as it exists today? - Which travelers and trip types are in scope: leisure, business or both, and all of flights, stays, cars and packages, or only one of them? - What does success mean here: more bookings and revenue, more travelers coming back for their next trip, or something else? - Should the design cover only travelers, or also the hotels, airlines and rental companies that supply the inventory? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A stated goal for the product, tied to how an online travel agency makes money (supplier commissions, margins on packaged or resold rates, advertising). - A segmentation of travelers with a reasoned choice of one segment to design for. - A journey from inspiration through planning, booking, the trip itself and any changes, with the chosen segment's pain points placed along it. - Solutions prioritized by impact and effort into a focused first version, with a clear reason travelers would book here rather than directly with an airline or hotel. - A success metric with guardrails, and the main risks such as price accuracy, supplier relationships, and handling cancellations and disruptions. ### Follow-up Questions - Airlines and hotel chains reward travelers for booking directly with points and member-only rates. What in your design gives travelers a reason to book through you instead? - A traveler's flight is cancelled while they are mid-trip, and their hotel and car bookings depend on it. Walk through what your product does and what you would measure about that moment. - Would you add an AI trip planner, and how would you stop it from suggesting prices or availability that turn out to be wrong?