Background & Objectives

Why this? Why now?

An early pilot version of this product but never took off. Updated market research revealed significant interest in a product that performed these functions leading to this being prioritized.

Research Objectives

• First, Figure out why the pilot failed and lay out what we already know.

• Understand who faces this problem? How do they define a "good deal"?

• How should this product integrate with existing checkout functionality without adding friction?

• What placement, messaging, and design would drive adoption and comprehension?

Approach

Discovery: I conducted a literature review of prior research and led [n = 8] exploratory interviews with travelers who described price-sensitivity as a key booking factor, and ran a competitor audit to map the customer journey.

Key Finding: The initial pilot had several issues from discoverability on a busy checkout page to the mechanism of its function, i.e., its value relied heavily on the users effort and having to do work for a product you purchased? Not ideal.

I also fielded a survey (n=289) with a colleague to measure comprehension of and interest in this and other related upcoming features, building on an earlier market research study I incorporated during the literature review.

Key Finding: We identified that people liked the core value prop of the product but did not always understand how it worked from the description. They were also aware that without looking at the price - interest was not contextualized enough.

Concept & Iterative Testing. With a designer developing early concepts against our constraints, I tested messaging and positioning ideas through 3 rounds of RITE (rapid iterative testing and evaluation), leaning on usability testing over interviews given the pace of iteration required.

• Key Finding: Banner blindness was persistent and several placements were easy to miss → we pivoted away from single-touchpoint placements toward multiple, more discoverable touchpoints across the flow.

• Key Finding: Price, User education, and assurance are key! There is a curiosity and delight around the product that we can capitalize on. However, our copy also needed to mitigate traveler's core apprehensions.

I established usability benchmarks pre-launch and worked with product on A/B test design, then partnered with quant researchers to capture post-launch usability metrics.

Closing the loop

Impact:

• 130% increase in product add-on rate for travelers booking flights

• 10x increase in up-funnel visitor volume through tactical in-app placement

• Introduced usability metrics alongside existing KPIs, giving product and design a shared, nuanced way to discuss engagement beyond conversion alone

• Built new cross-functional partnerships in design, data science, and product marketing, and helped shape the team's broader shopping-path roadmap

What I'd Do Differently

Looking back, I'd push earlier for a cross-team workshop on cognitive load — with so many products launching into the same flow simultaneously, we didn't fully address feature interference until after several rounds of testing had already surfaced it.

Learnings:

• Team Collaboration:

  • Even when delivering challenging findings, remember you work with—not against— your team.

  • Delivering difficult findings works best when framed as a shared problem, not a critique — I maintained a regular cadence of share-outs at product/design syncs, team readouts, and a full-org presentation to senior leadership.
    
    

• Advocacy and Persistence:

  • Advocate for your recommendations, even if implementation takes time and can only be in 'future iterations'

  • Document research findings—they can resurface and inform future projects. This is how literature reviews are synthesized!

• Cross-team leverage: I incorporated relevant questions into peer teams' studies to gather additional data efficiently, since research problems often overlap across product areas even when teams don't. This way you can be efficient and directly use the findings from studies run by team members to move the needle.