Travel search widget redesign

The challenge

The control search widget was the entry point to every travel booking, but its design worked against the task. Six product tabs rendered as heavy bordered cards with stacked icons and labels, consuming a full band of vertical space before a member could reach a single input field. On mobile the tab row overflowed horizontally, cutting off Activities entirely and leaving Cruises partially hidden — two products effectively invisible to anyone who didn't think to scroll sideways.

A promotional headline sat between the tabs and the form, pushing the fields further down. Below it, an outlined field treatment gave every input the same visual weight, so nothing signaled where to start.

The solution

Rebuilt the widget around speed to first input.

Product tabs were flattened from bordered cards into inline text-and-icon links, with the active state carried by a single filled pill. This cut the tab band's height substantially and let all six products fit on one line on desktop. On mobile, the overflow was resolved with a visible forward affordance so members could tell more products existed rather than discovering them by accident.

The promotional headline was removed. It described a benefit members had already accepted by arriving at the widget, and it delayed the task.

Fields moved from outlined to filled treatment, creating a lighter, more scannable form where the input areas read as a connected group. On mobile, the search button was promoted directly beneath the fields, with Advanced options and My reservations demoted below it.

Conclusion

Clicks rose 37% and bookings 17.77% with no change to inventory, pricing, or the underlying booking flow. The lift came from removing what sat between the member and the first field: a heavy tab band, a redundant headline, and a mobile layout that hid two of six products.

The gap between the two numbers is itself informative. Clicks grew faster than bookings, which is what you'd expect when a redesign primarily improves discoverability: more members engaged with more products, including ones they previously couldn't see.

My contribution

Audited the control widget across breakpoints and identified the mobile tab overflow as the highest-cost defect, since it made two products functionally undiscoverable. Redesigned the tab pattern from bordered cards to inline links with a single active pill, reclaiming vertical space while keeping all six products visible on desktop.

Removed the promotional headline after determining it delayed the primary task without adding decision value. Converted field styling from outlined to filled to reduce visual noise and group the inputs as a single unit.

Restructured the mobile hierarchy to place the search action immediately after the fields, demoting secondary links below it. Carried the new design across both breakpoints and defined clicks and bookings as the paired success metrics to confirm the lift carried through to conversion.