Project: Usability Testing
Background
With headquarters in Vancouver Canada, Intrawest is one of the world’s largest operators of ski resorts. Their properties include Copper Mountain, Winter Park, Steamboat, and Whistler-Blackcomb to name a few. We have worked with Intrawest for the past six years to improve their Web strategy and user experience. The goal is to improve the usability of their online booking software and improve conversion rates on their ski resort Websites.
Booking a ski vacation online is not an easy task. One must consider travel to the resort, lodging, ski equipment, rentals, lift tickets, weather and many other factors. When these variables are combined with the many preferences and requirements of each skier, online booking can get complex.
Our expertise at making complex situations simple helped Intrawest. To do this, we planned and implemented usability-testing sessions in several U.S. and Canadian cities. In our most recent set of tests, over 40 users participated and the results were compiled into a final report that gave Intrawest a wealth of ideas for updates to their booking software and Websites. The user testing was video taped, recorded to a hard drive and Intrawest staff observed the sessions live via WebEx. The results were immediate and changes were made to the Website immediately following some of the sessions.
Services Provided by Intuitive Websites
We also performed user testing for Sandestin, which is an Intrawest beach resort.
Websites that were tested:
Intrawest
Sandestin
Copper Mountain Resort
Winter Park Resort
Results
The bottom line for Intrawest was an increase in online reservations and bookings. They have seen substantial increases in these areas due to the user testing and improvements made to the ski area Websites.
Intrawest is currently in the process of implementing dozens of recommendations from our final report and preparing for the launch of their new improved online booking and reservation software. The increase in online bookings, revenue and cost savings will pay for the user testing program many times over.