To better understand how and why people pick vacations, Expedia gets into the head of its potential travellers – literally.
Utilising eye-tracking and facial-movement sensors, a team of researchers at Expedia’s Innovation Lab in Bellevue, Washington, hope to find out what makes a person happy or upset while browsing the Expedia website. These sensitive sensors, placed on the faces of volunteers, will detect any changes in their facial expressions that hint at feelings of happiness, frustration or anxiety.
During the 45-minute test, volunteers navigate through the Expedia website just like how a typical traveller would, trawling through hotels, flights or tour packages.
Meanwhile, researchers will be standing behind a two-way mirror and closely monitoring the data to evaluate a user’s Expedia online experience.
Scott Jones, Expedia’s vice president, global product design and user experience, said: “We want to understand the emotional pieces behind their experience. It is like a lie detector test for emotions.
“When we combine electromyography with eye-tracking technology, it is really powerful because we can identify what the users are looking at and also see what they are emotionally experiencing.”
Since starting the study three years ago, Expedia would make changes to the website based on the findings.
For instance, Jones said that they have learnt that travellers particularly liked having high-resolution images because volunteers smiled more when viewing hotel pictures. Hence, they shared this feedback with the hotels, and requested for a wider selection of quality images.
On the contrary, travellers became frustrated when they were presented with multiple price options for the same hotel room during the booking process. Such frustration and anxiety levels could be detected from their frowning.
He explained: “It could be that the hotel room and booking conditions for having to pay more or less are not stated clearly.”
As such, Jones said they would take this knowledge into consideration accordingly when designing the website.
While current tests are conducted based on the US market, Expedia has not forgotten about its Asian audience. According to Jones, Expedia will soon be introducing this sophisticated technology to Singapore, when they open another Innovator Lab in end-2016.
This article was first published in TTG Asia, June 3, 2016 issue, on page 10. To read more, please view our digital edition or click here to subscribe
