22 - 5 - 2013
For travel agency Diogenes Reizen the hectic high season starts in September, when the bulk of their customers is planning customized group trips. In March, I delivered their new website so that Marcel Baauw and his team at Trinfinity could start testing, results measuring and structurally improving. The new website is the result of a drastic redesign.
From 2009 on, I had already been structurally improving the Diogenes website. At the end of 2011, we decided that it was time for a more fundamental innovation to meet customer’s needs and expectations, like showing the total costs of exemplary group trips. Also, users nowadays expect websites to be suitable for their mobile phone.
I started by collecting all the 'input'. To get a clear picture of the goals, wants and expectations of the users, we joined forces with bureau Easy to implement a usability lab test. I executed an expert review as well as a user top task analysis. Finally, and very importantly, we made a map of the targets of Diogenes Reizen.
We now had ample material for several sketch board / brown paper workshops with Diogenes staff members to discuss and complete the available information, set priorities and take notes. We identified six personas, representing the different user groups with different behavioural types and tasks. Together we made the first sketches for the new website.
After this first phase, I worked on a prototype of the website. Through continuously questioning, testing and adjusting the prototypes with different Diogenes Reizen staff members, we developed a prototype to document the complete website.
The visual design was created in the same iterative way. After a series of meetings, revisions and adjustments, I developed a visual design. The new and modern result matched the existing corporate design of Diogenes Reizen.
My next step was to build a website, based on the open source Drupal content management system. This system contains semantic RDFa standards, to make sure websites are better recognized by search engines. From the very first sketches on I have guarded the usability of the website, as well as the accessibility on different screens. In the end this enabled me to deliver a fully responsive website.
I wish Diogenes Reizen all the best with their new website in the coming high season!