The first step of broadening up the once private profile is to allow users to personalize their account with an image. Expedia at this point only was collecting the user's name and contact information.
End-to-end touchpoints
Having the connected profile experience buried 3 steps deep within the account page, which only 1/6 of users access monthly, was not enough. The team inserted incremental onboarding and diverse entry points to boost feature exposure.
Touchpoints across home page, trips page, accounts page, notifications inbox, and transactional email
Onboarding
A key consideration was the legal/privacy implications of publicizing profiles. All users had a choice to opt out of profile discoverability. Onboarding informed travelers of who could find their profiles (friends and families they explicitly add) and allowed them to customize which trips become visible.
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Complements feature introduction cards, contextual coach marks, inbox notifications.
The first version of the public profile was to encourage travelers to add connections and preview what public-facing trips look like. The long-term profile vision presents a robust traveler hub housing their categorized travel community, nuanced trip information, and much more!
Visual alignment
To make the Connected Profiles flow look and feel consistent with the rest of the Expedia app, I consulted the onboarding and design system teams to gather their frameworks and critiques.
Onboarding team guidance
Design system team guidance
Engineering handoff
Engineers were looped in early to certify the overall flow was technically feasible. Later in the phase, detailed documentation of modular states and edge cases were added. Strategies that helped me succeed include:
- Engage engineers often - Talk with engineers at the right time and frequency to keep everyone informed on requirements plus identify technical risks sooner
- Tailor designs and feedback request accordingly - Iterate on how to present designs to different audiences at different stages of the project
