Hostel Hop is a booking platform for hostels that aims to support the lifestyle of the typical hostel-goer by providing cash incentives for recommending hostels. The original concept was called Bedcoins and was brought to us by a Croatian hostel owner who had noticed behaviors among his guests that differentiated them from the usual European hotel guest.

The Problem

The success of a hostel depends on its ability to provide a fun environment for young travelers who are trying to make their money last as long as possible. The typical hostel guest doesn't plan their adventure ahead of time; instead, they rely on recommendations from fellow hostel guests for their next destination and accommodation. Hostel receptionists, in particular, often make recommendations as part of their service, but they don't benefit from advertising other businesses. The existing product aimed to solve this problem, but it had several issues of its own. The recommendation experience, from the original concept to iteration one, provided too much unrelated information to the users. Additionally, several features were added without utilizing user data, and a clearly defined design system was never established.

The Solution

We enhanced the overall experience by designing a more intentional and understandable structure for the product. We developed a design system and incorporated clearer language to introduce unfamiliar features, resulting in a more cohesive visual design. Additionally, we simplified the recommendation experience and created a smoother flow from booking to stay to recommendation. Moreover, we utilized user data to improve other features, reducing confusion around features such as the "My Maps" experience, notifications, onboarding, transferring credits, etc.

Visual Design

Starting with the branding, we took apart the original design and enhanced it wherever we could. We brought up the intensity of the core colors to communicate more directly with our target audience and changed the logo from the backpack to the hopping “h”. With this art direction we developed a UI kit and some simple rules for the design of the product which helped to create a more cohesive experience.

Recommendations

We simplified the recommendations experience to a simple notification structure. The original experience required that you accept or decline received recommendations and then separately go through the checkout flow, there was also an outbox for sent recommendations. We found that the only necessary function for the user was to book based on the recommendation or not. We adjusted the user flow so that in order to accept a recommendation you simply tap on a received recommendation and that takes you through the booking process. If you book the same hostel outside of the recommendation flow, you are simply rejecting the recommendation.

A CLEAR STRUCTURE

A number of other features were simplified in order to make unfamiliar experiences easier to understand. We found that a couple of the core features were difficult for users to immediately recognize so we added labels to the navigation icons and arranged them in a linear order from left to right. The maps experience was meant to let travel influencers share groups of hostels from a particular journey with their followers as a form of mass recommendation. The function of this feature was not immediately obvious so we worked to make the interface more familiar to similar experiences.