An Enhanced User Experience
Elevating Visit Qatar’s Award-Winning Website
Year
2022-2023
Industry
Tourism and travel
Role
UX designer
Team
UI designer, Functional Analyst, Project Managers, Team by Emakina
The challenge
L’applicazione mobile di Visit Qatar ha ottenuto il Bronze Award ai Digital Communication Awards 2022 e l’ambito Adobe Experience Maker Award 2022 per i suoi percorsi utente multicanale e senza soluzione di continuità. Tuttavia, il sito web desktop non riusciva a catturare la stessa magia. Gli utenti desideravano un sito web che rispecchiasse l’intuitività e l’attrattiva visiva dell’app, stimolando un’avvincente esplorazione dei tesori del Qatar.
The goal
Building upon the award-winning principles that propelled the Visit Qatar mobile app to success, we aimed to transform the website into a user-centric haven. This involved revamping navigation, creating a robust design system with reusable components, crafting engaging campaign pages, optimizing content for search engines, redesigning the website map and building an immersive experience.
Unearthing the problem
Through deep dives into user research (surveys, interviews, and analytics) and industry benchmarking, we identified a crucial gap. The website lacked intuitive navigation, hindering user exploration and making it difficult to discover hidden gems. Additionally, content needed SEO optimization to ensure it appeared prominently in search engine results.
intuitive navigation
To take advantage of the site’s wealth of content, smooth and intuitive navigation is the key to success.
SEO optimization
SEO optimization involves aligning website content, structure, and technical elements with search engine algorithms and user search queries to boost organic traffic and business growth.
Crafting an immersive Experience
An immersive storytelling experience on the pages of the site allows the user to experience the emotions of Qatar and to wish for a trip to the country.
The process
Research
The project began with a thorough discovery phase where I helped conduct in-depth user research, including surveys, interviews, and analytics analysis. By gaining a deep understanding of the target audience’s needs and expectations, we were able to identify pain points and opportunities for improvement. Benchmarking against other tourism websites helped us understand best practices in the industry and set our project goals.
Design
In the design phase, I leveraged the insights from the discovery phase to create wireframes that streamlined the website’s navigation, ensuring a seamless user journey. I also helped the UI design team to keep user experience at the hightest standard, developing a comprehensive design system with reusable components, providing a consistent and visually appealing user interface. Campaign pages were designed to be engaging and informative, with a strong call-to-action. Content was optimized for SEO, improving the website’s search engine ranking. The website map was restructured to enhance user exploration, and the user profile experience was revamped to make it more personalized and efficient.
This project showcases how a thoughtful approach to user experience and design can greatly enhance a website’s functionality, ultimately leading to a more enjoyable and informative experience for visitors.
The solution
- Award-Winning Navigation on Desktop: we focus our preliminary testing phase on the navigation map to ensure an effortless user journey.
- Cohesive Design System for a Seamless Experience: A comprehensive design system with reusable components fostered a visually appealing and consistent user interface across the entire website
- Enhanced Website Map for Deeper Exploration: The restructured website map mirrored the app's intuitive layout, allowing visitors to delve deeper into specific areas of interest with ease, fostering a sense of discovery akin to the mobile experience.
- Engaging Campaign pages that Inspire. Captivating and informative campaign pages, designed with clear calls to action, replicated the mobile app's ability to inspire users to delve deeper and explore further.
My takeways
Visit Qatar’s website is a treasure trove of information catering to every user, from first-time visitors to seasoned travelers. However, accessing this wealth of knowledge is futile without a well-crafted navigation system. Prioritizing user experience, not just customer goals, is paramount. The key to achieving the client’s objective of increased website traffic and page dwell time lies in exceptional UX design.