Upcoming Travelgrove Changes – Major Design Overhaul

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Well guys, the title pretty much says it all, but let me give you a bit of depth and background story to the subject at hands. We’ve actually been cooking this new design for quite a while and to be frank, we’re more excited then ever about our soon-to-be major change in TravelGrove’s look and feel. Why? Well, Travelgrove’s our home and we’re hoping some of you guys will feel at home here (or at least feel like you’re staying in a 5-star guest house) and when you spend so much time in one place, you want to make your habitat as pretty as possible. In our “real life” homes we decorate, hang pictures on the wall and sprinkle the place with plants to cheer up the mood. In our virtual home, we have a much harder time, because the setting needs to be decorated pixel by pixel.

Obviously, we’re trying to remain as objective as possible at all times here at Travelgrove and while we think our current design and site structure does fulfill some of the standards you guys would be expecting for us, we couldn’t help but notice that we were not on-par with some of our competition in terms of how we look. One might wonder why we’d be so focused on getting a new design out, when we already have a decent one out and why we focus on “looks”, when the nucleus of the site should be its “smarts”: the ticket price search engine.

Well, there are a couple of reasons:

Usability – Right now we feel like the content on our site is a bit crowded and from a usability perspective it’s an overkill for any human surfer that lands on one of Travelgrove’s pages. The new design will be much more user-friendly and it will make the stay here more pleasant.

Navigation – I guess this could easily fall under usability as well, but we wanted to emphasize that we’re taking an extra length in getting the navigation right with the new design and letting people know exactly what’s what and where to find it. We’re going to try some mild color coding for this purpose and although we were a bit unsure as to whether or not this is the right method to use on Travelgrove, after seeing the first mockups from our designers, we think they nailed it (see pictures below).

Business – We’re a business and as such, we have to take care of the small details that make or break a deal. Our design is our “face” in a virtual meeting with both the users of the site and our advertisers or business partners. We wouldn’t feel comfortable going to all of these business meetings with a bad hair day each time

Here are a couple of teaser pictures you can check out (click them to enlarge the photo):

Since we still have some work to do on this new design and its implementation, we’d be more than happy to hear any suggestions as to how you’d like Travelgrove to look when the new version is finished. After all, it’s going to be your guest house too, so if you want us to hang a picture on the wall, we might just do it

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Comments on Upcoming Travelgrove Changes – Major Design Overhaul

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ammerett wrote on April 8, 2009:

is it possible to show price of at 4 sites on the first click instead of one at a time?

Xinglai Sun wrote on April 8, 2009:

Dear sir,
The blog will be useful for me. I would like to have a look for it on time.Thanks for your email.

Peter wrote on April 9, 2009:

We are showing 4 merchants as an option for comparisons, however the actual Travelgrove search will search different companies depending on where you are located. If you are in the UK for example, you would see UK providers…

Lifecruiser Travel Blog wrote on May 22, 2009:

I love the coloring, makes it much more appealing, but, ehrm, the 3 guys on the forum picture: in that case they should be saying like me: Where are the girls…??? *giggles*

tudi wrote on May 26, 2009:

Hah, that one’s just some stock photo and I’m pretty sure we’ll replace them. Definitely add some girls in the mix too 😉

catscratcher wrote on June 3, 2009:

The design is very Web 2.0. I like it, especially the Cheap Flight Search design. There’s just a hint of sunshine about those colors

 

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