The Gist
The problem: At a leading hotel booking site, the resort team was rapidly launching experiments for families, couples, and large groups — but feature decisions were built on assumptions, not user evidence. There was no time for a full research cycle.
The approach: A two-hour heuristic evaluation workshop, where cross-functional team members were assigned competitor websites and walked through three specific user scenarios — surfacing friction from the user's perspective, not the product team's.
The outcome: Detailed friction maps per scenario, a team that had directly experienced the gaps, and two concrete product changes — dynamic content personalization and a dedicated accessibility section — shipped as a direct result.
Situation
Fast-moving teams don't always have time for the research they need
At a leading hotel booking site, the resort team operated under the same pressure familiar to most product teams: tight timelines, rapid experiment cycles, and a roadmap that moved faster than the research function could keep pace with. Features were being designed for distinct traveler groups — families with young children, couples, large parties celebrating milestones — but the assumptions underlying those decisions had never been tested with the people they were meant to serve.
The team was also mirroring competitor booking flows without evaluating whether those flows actually worked for the user types they were trying to reach. Competitive parity is a reasonable starting point, but it's not validation. Copying a pattern that's broken for a specific user type just ships the same problem.
A full research study wasn't an option given the timeline. But that doesn't mean the team had to ship blind.
Key Findings
What the team discovered by stepping into the user's shoes
Competitor sites weren't a usability benchmark — they had the same gaps
Teams evaluating competitor flows discovered that the patterns being used as reference points had significant friction for the assigned user scenarios. Copying a competitor's booking flow also meant inheriting their blind spots.
Traveler context was invisible in the booking experience
The experience presented the same content regardless of who was searching. A couple looking for an adults-only resort and a family searching for babysitting-friendly properties saw identical layouts, identical prioritization. The product had no mechanism to reflect the traveler's actual context.
Accessibility needs were scattered and hard to surface
Teams evaluating the large-group scenario — a family planning around mobility and accessibility requirements — found that accessibility information was fragmented and difficult to locate. For users with real needs, it was effectively hidden.
First-hand experience shifted the team's framing
The value of the workshop wasn't just the friction maps. Having team members walk through the experience as a specific user — not observe it abstractly — created genuine empathy. The conversation about what to fix changed because the problem was no longer theoretical.
The Approach
Three scenarios. One two-hour session. Real friction surfaced.
I organized a cross-functional workshop where team members were divided into small groups, each assigned to a competitor's website and given a specific user scenario to evaluate. Using a structured heuristic template, each group documented friction points, usability issues, and gaps from the perspective of their assigned traveler type.
The three scenarios were chosen to represent the distinct user groups the team was building for — ensuring the workshop surfaced issues specific to their actual product challenges, not generic usability problems.
A couple seeking a romantic getaway at an adults-only resort
Teams evaluated how well the booking experience helped two adults find and filter for adult-only properties, romantic amenities, and the right atmosphere — without irrelevant family-focused content cluttering the experience.
A family with two young children looking for a kid-friendly resort with babysitting services
Teams evaluated how easily parents could identify properties with specific child-relevant amenities — kids' clubs, babysitting, pool safety — and whether the experience surfaced those details prominently enough to support a confident booking decision.
A large family planning a 70th birthday celebration requiring an accessible resort
Teams evaluated how well the experience served a group booking with accessibility as a hard requirement — including mobility features, accessible rooms, and the completeness of accessibility information displayed on property pages.
What Changed
Two product changes shipped before a line of code was written
Workshop findings were compiled into friction maps for each scenario, highlighting where the experience broke down and for whom. These were shared with the product team and directly informed two concrete changes:
Dynamic content personalization: Property detail pages were updated to display content that reflected the user's search context. Searches from two adults surfaced adult-focused amenities and resort types; searches including children prioritised kid-friendly features and facilities. The experience could finally respond to who was actually searching.
Dedicated accessibility section: Accessibility features were consolidated into a single, visible section on property detail pages — replacing the fragmented presentation that made it nearly impossible for users with accessibility needs to evaluate a property confidently. The team began actively collecting and displaying this information as structured data.
A higher bar for competitive reference: The workshop established a precedent for evaluating competitor patterns through a specific user lens before treating them as defaults. Copying a flow that doesn't work for your user type isn't a strategy — it's a shortcut with a cost.
Outcome
Speed doesn't have to mean skipping the user perspective — it means choosing the right method for the time you have. A two-hour workshop isn't a substitute for a full research cycle, but it gave this team something they didn't have before: direct experience of the friction their users were navigating. That shift in perspective — from assumption to evidence — is what made the product changes possible. And those changes happened before a single line of code was written.