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Empowering travel agent productivity with a clean, responsive member site.
Agent Universe serves as the gateway for Travel Leaders Network travel agents to access the consortium's programs and partner details. However, years of minimal investment have turned the B2B website into an overwhelming content dumping ground, with information rarely deleted or managed long-term. The lack of regular oversight has made its growing, multilayered navigation messy, with each page housing dense paragraphs that force readers to dig deeper for what they need. Its outdated, unresponsive interface falls behind industry standards, leading agents to admit they often rely on Travel Leaders' competitor resources instead. Operating outside of the network's resources threatens revenue opportunities for both the network and its member agencies.
Before official research was performed, an initial prototype of the homepage was developed based on stakeholder interviews featuring a megamenu dropdown to showcase the structure of the organization and remove the “game of Operation” in the original site's single column dropdown. The search bar was spotlighted like a search engine to encourage agents to use this function before digging through the site's architecture.
Through our travel agent interviews, we validated the need for a more prominent search bar to help agents quickly access the time-sensitive information they need for their work. The introduction of a megamenu dropdown emerged as the preferred solution for facilitating efficient navigation through the vast array of pages and content.
To further enhance user experience and reduce cognitive overload, we redesigned the homepage carousel and banner ads to be less distracting and more organically integrated into the site. This approach ensures that these elements support rather than hinder the browsing experience.
The final product is centered around a robust design system that strikes a balance between flexibility and consistency. This system is flexible enough to accommodate the diverse content requirements of various programs and partners, yet consistent enough to provide agents with a uniform page structure. As a result, agents can reliably locate specific pieces of content, knowing that the structure will be familiar and intuitive across different sections of the site.
Exploring the terrain
Stakeholders across the company were interviewed to share their painpoints of the former Agent Universe and asked to share their screen as they walked us through their challenges. Some departments provided large write-ups of their wishlist for the new website.
Over 100 travel agents participated in an online survey of Agent Universe and results were mixed on whether information was easy to find. Quantitative data reported it was easy while qualitative data proved otherwise with comments like "it's impossible to find information quickly" and there's "so many layers." These two competing viewpoints present opportunities to keeping high-level information architecture and basic functionality the same all while improving the organization that operates below.
Six travel agency owners representing the agents that report to them were asked to share their professional background and experience with Agent Universe.
During the interviews, Marketade also conducted a card sort exercise to understand how these users expect content to be organized on Agent Universe. Half of the interviewees grouped cards based on travel category which was different in structure when compared to the former architecture. This finding provided insight into how a megamenu could further be organized into subcategories while preserving the main parent navigation labels.
The half-day stakeholder workshop went through the different page types to brainstorm their respective problems and solutions.
The workshop generated the list we needed to work from to then prioritize what needed to be tackled first in the redesign.
Charting the paths
The wireframes were mocked up following all the insights from the various research tactics performed.
The previous website was known to have a website with “too many layers”, but “a major reorganization would risk causing
frustration among Agent Universe’s legacy user base.” With that said, the former website’s 8 topmost navigation labels were reduced to 6 to reduce the number of buckets an agent must dig to search what they're looking for. The card sorting activity revealed the idea of subcategories to help sort within the topmost navigation labels.
The old Agent Universe logo didn't reflect the Travel Leaders brand guidelines, so our goal was to make it more cohesive with the overall identity of the company.
Arrive at the destination
Prior to building the full prototype, stakeholders were briefed on the research conducted and the homepage prototype was presented to approve the direction. Slide design follows the presentation template of the company.
Agent Universe's homepage laid the groundwork for the rest of the site and went through several revisions before landing on the final version.
Agent Universe consists of various uniquely-built program and partner page types, each with its own specific requirements. These pages need a diverse range of design components and patterns from the style library to meet their distinct needs effectively while ensuring consistency across the site.
The desktop and mobile prototypes provided developers with the layout and components set to be built in the new site.
The Agent Universe Design System serves as a streamlined solution for enhancing the efficiency of content creation for the platform contributors. Designed as the ultimate reference point for both developers and content owners, it offers comprehensive guidelines aimed at promoting consistency across the website.
During the site's development, I was recruited to code the Design System templates, patterns, and components into the content management system. This plug-and-play approach made it easier for content managers to build their sections of the site before launch, eliminating the need to build each element individually. Previously, components were developed locally, which meant future style changes would require unnecessary upkeep across the hundreds of pages on the site. To remedy this issue, I introduced universal classes to ensure an efficient build process and a consistent final result.
