Agoda - Travel Agency
Fall 2026 - Extended university project
Role: UX Researcher and Designer
Team: Two Additional UX Researchers
Overview
Agoda is an online travel agency akin to Expedia or Booking.com.
They help users book hotels, flights, vacation rentals, and activities around the world. Founded in 2005 and now part of Booking Holdings, Agoda is especially known for its strong presence in Asia and its large selection of accommodation deals and travel discounts.
Problem
SiteMinder, Changing Traveller Report 2025 (data based on a survey of 12,000 global travelers).
Process
We began by conducting 10 user interviews with frequent international travelers to understand how users search for flights, compare tradeoffs, and decide when to book.
We ran 6 moderated usability tests on Agoda’s desktop flight booking flow to evaluate search, filtering, comparison, and access to critical information like baggage and cancellation policies.
And we evaluated leading flight booking platforms (Expedia, Booking.com, etc) to understand where they set the standard — and where Agoda can elevate their user experience.
Interviews
The interviews were essential in revealing what users found important and frustrating in their current flight booking rituals — regardless of whether or not they used Agoda. It was the basis I kept coming back to in my design process and grounded all of my decisions in qualitative evidence.
Through the interviews we discovered a clear focus on price and familiarity. Users often found and stuck with a booking platform and didn't feel much need to change things up as long as it continued to satisfy. They preferred an experience that made the process quicker and information clearer — ultimately giving them the most confidence in a high stakes environment.
Feel free to move around and take a look at our affinity diagram.
Usability testing
Usability testing has quickly become a favorite of mine as I believe it removes any familiarity bias myself I, as the designer, holds. Patterns that felt intuitive to me through repeated use were discovered to be unclear to new users, especially when navigation or information placement differed from expectations set by other booking platforms.
Observing real behavior helped reset any held assumptions and refocus the design on first-time clarity. These insights were invaluable to pair with what we learned from our initial interviews.
Competitive analysis
Finally, competitive analysis was a quick and low cost way to elevate my designs. Our interviewees relied on familiar platforms to complete their booking needs, so considering the design styles and user flows of leading travel agencies was a great way to create consistency and recognition within what Agoda has to offer.
What other platforms did better…
✓ Surface booking-critical details early (price, baggage, restrictions)
✓ Use clear visual hierarchy to guide comparison
✓ Maintain strong orientation and system feedback
✓ Enable easy side-by-side comparability between options
However, finding that balance between industry standards and staying true to what Agoda has established was a challenge throughout my iterating. With platform trust being built up over time, it was important to make changes that made sense beyond (subjectively) better UI.
Key Findings
All of our research led us to 3 key findings that were actionable enough to drive the design process.
Weak intent signaling caused navigation issues and hesitation
Filters and date controls made comparison difficult
Dense layouts and inconsistent hierarchy increased cognitive load
As this project was focused on the flight booking process, I chose to redesign the 3 main points of looking at flights: arrival on the website, searching for a flight, and seeing search results.
The process stayed consistent throughout my designing where I would evaluate the current Agoda page, decide what areas I needed to focus on based on the research my team and I did, and finally iterate on designs until satisfied functionally and aesthetically.
Let's now take a quick look at the current pages and why I created the redesigns.
Designing - landing page
This is what the landing page currently looks like…
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When looking at the current page, the layout needed to be simplified and visual hierarchy strengthened. This would reduce clutter, improve scannability, and keep users focused on primary actions.
Our usability testing showed that users often entered the wrong booking flow due to unclear active states. To address this, I wanted to introduce a prompting screen that clarifies user intent before search begins.
The perceived tradeoff appears large as users are met by a new screen to orient them immediately, but I realized that unless the user came to the site for hotels (as that is where Agoda initially puts everyone) it's still only a singular click.
I weighed the improved system feedback and user navigation to be much more beneficial than users searching for hotels being slowed by one click.
My initial attempt made travel options more visible but not as scannable as desired. Weak hierarchy made choices feel cluttered and this more creative approach strayed too far away from industry standard and the concept of familiarity that I was trying to take advantage of.
I began shifting towards this…
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Options are easy to scan at a glance, lightweight layout reduces visual noise, page design orients users into the right flow without interrupting momentum, and it aligns better with industry standards.
Here is where my design ended up…
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Clearer information hierarchy, simplified top bar navigation to reduce cognitive load upon immediate entry, and a strong contrast that utilizes the Agoda purple color.
Designing - Flights searching
Here is what searching for a flight currently looks like…
The navigation bar is cluttered, there's a lack of searching shortcuts, unnecessarily large searching box, and competing colors.
Competitor analysis highlighted the value of search history and quick re-entry points. To align with this pattern, I wanted to introduce “resume where you left off” cards that let users return to recent itineraries with one click.
The flight search was to be consolidated into a single, unified search bar, replacing stacked inputs that created clutter. Key controls needed to be emphasized through clearer hierarchy and contrast, while low-value alerts needed removing to keep users focused on completing a search.
Here's where I started…
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This version made navigation and inputs compete for attention, weakening hierarchy. Key actions like “resume search” are not visible enough upfront and the layout prioritizes completeness over quick understanding.
I began shifting towards this…
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This version creates a clear hierarchy around core booking actions, it unifies inputs into a single search bar to reduce friction, surfaces resume searches immediately for faster re-entry, and de-emphasizes secondary options to limit distraction and noise.
This naturally progressed into the final version.
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The "Resume where you left off…" options gave power to frequent users, the unified search bar aligned better with industry standards and read more naturally left to right, spacing was tightened for the layout to feel more complete.
Designing - Flights results
Here is what the flight results screen currently looks like…
Usability testing revealed that users struggled to compare prices across dates due to weak contrast, unclear controls, and poor visual hierarchy.
To address this, I wanted to surface key filters in a high-contrast search bar, simplify the color palette, and remove distracting alerts. Replace ambiguous indicators were with explicit dates, and make flight options easier to scan and compare at a glance.
Here is how I started my approach…
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The full filter stack overwhelmed the page and buried results, excess dropdowns slowed comparison and increased friction, filters competed with, rather than supported, result scanning, and navigation lacked clear orientation or an easy way back.
For those reasons I pivoted towards this which aligned better with my objectives…
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This consolidated key filters into a high-contrast bar, de-emphasized secondary controls using familiar patterns, clarified navigation to keep users oriented, prioritized results over controls, and improved scanability through a cleaner layout.
A look at the final version…
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And here's a quick look at what the interaction looks like together…
Reflections
I learned a lot from this project about UX Research as well as translating those findings into actionable design changes. There were many things that I would repeat when starting out on a new project, but also things I wish I did differently — or additionally.
The usability testing my team and I conducted was solely on the current Agoda platform, but I would've liked to do testing on other online travel agency platforms to see if issues were persistent or unique to Agoda.
Furthermore I would extend this usability testing onto a fully fleshed out prototype of the redesigned flight booking flow.
In terms of interviews, I felt slightly limited by the target audience we decided upon when making design decisions for everyone that may visit Agoda. I would've liked to recruit beyond college aged international students as different ages and backgrounds would likely reveal new insights.
Learnings
Layered research reveals clearer priorities.
No single method surfaced the full problem. Interviews, affinity mapping, comparative analysis, and usability testing each exposed different insights, and only by synthesizing them together did clear patterns and design priorities emerge.
Clarity is about hierarchy, not less information.
Users did not struggle because there was too much information, but because important details were not emphasized at the right moments. Improving hierarchy, contrast, and layout allowed critical information to surface naturally, supporting faster comparison without removing useful context.
Usability testing exposed familiarity bias.
Through usability testing, I realized how my own familiarity with Agoda influenced early design assumptions. Patterns that felt intuitive to me were unclear to new users, especially when navigation or information placement differed from expectations set by other booking platforms. Observing real behavior helped reset those assumptions and refocus the design on first-time clarity.
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