CASE STUDY
A facelift of the already beautiful
9 minutes read
A redesign of the Republic of Maldives government tourism website
Tools used:
Adobe XD, InVision, Photoshop, Illustrator, Optimal Workshop, Google Forms, Maze, Apple Screen Reader, Shutterstock
Click on the links below for more details
It's made for Phil and Jenny
They want a tropical getaway that indulges their interests as individuals and as a couple. Phil likes adventure & sports. Jenny likes pampering herself. Both like food. They already have a shortlist of island destinations and need more information on each to make a decision.
The Problem
“Should we go to the Maldives?”
After googling “Maldives website”, Phil is sent to www.visitmaldives.com. He frowns. It doesn’t look like it’s been updated in the last 5 years. It’s asking him to search for a place but he doesn’t want to do that yet. He scrolls down and is relieved to find activities he likes. He clicks and sees a page with lots of text. They don’t show pricing, availability, reviews or other details he cares about. Maybe Fiji would be better, he thinks and then closes the window.
Pages from the old site
We believe the real beauty of the Maldives and what they have to offer visitors is NOT captured in their existing website. A quick scan of resort websites of the island showed how its tourism site has failed to display its intrinsic charm. A heuristic analysis and accessibility analysis show that the site is adequate. So we did UI analysis via redlining to spot more areas for improvement.
Where the site suffers:
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Inconsistent styling
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Superficial search
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Inconsistent navigation
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Superfluous copywriting
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Lack of details
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Redundant buttons
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Irrelevant information
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Lack of stunning visuals
This, together with card sorting and competitive benchmarking, revealed that our redesign should begin with a more organized sitemap that anticipate questions of potential visitors and answer them more directly.
The Solution:
Segregating Corporate vs Tourist information emerged as main themes in the card sorting, so we grouped everything non-essential for a leisure trip into another section (Travel trade & media). Testers also saw the existing site to have allocated the most space for destinations and activities, so we highlighted these. Planning was also added based on best practices of competitors.
1
Smart Navigation
Show multiple pathways to finding info at a glance
Our redesign focused on:
2
Relevant Content
Show info that matters to the traveler first
3
Informative Visuals
Use exciting imagery that convey similar info as voluminous text
More importantly, it answers Phil & Jenny's questions:
"Will this fit my budget?"
What's new?
Destinations can be sorted according to price. Activity pricing are also shown.
Do you have more questions like Phil? See if you can find the answer fast:
You can almost smell the salt water
Slide left or right to see the before/after
We want to show Phil and Jenny the feelings and sensations of the paradise that is Maldives. Its original slogan of “The Sunny Side of Life” is captured through the refreshing colors of the sea and the vibrance of the sun and sea life. It appears softer than the identity of the 5-star resorts it houses to appear inviting, yet it does not stray away from its world-class look and feel.
The final version used more transparencies since initial testing showed it better captured the light and carefree personality of the island.
The Re-brand
The logo is simplified into a modern and more scalable version. The wave also morphs into various design elements.
Check out the entire style tile here.
The Results:
Since the revitalized navigation is the core of the redesign, our usability testing plan focused on how well users locate the info they need via various paths. The results were successful more for desktop than the mobile version.
Messaging-wise, our new slogan “There’s always something for everyone” resonated better with our testers than the original “The Sunny Side of Life” since they are more activity-motivated and budget-conscious.
After googling “Maldives website”, Phil is sent to the new www.visitmaldives.com. He gasps. Jenny would love it here, he thinks. He scrolls down and sees all the different options of what they can do—plentiful yet hardly overwhelming. And everything looks like a dream. He hovers over a navigation tab or two and sees how structured the information is. “Now, that’s a beauty”, he says, head nodding, palms rubbing.
We couldn’t agree more.