Overview

Orbitz Worldwide needed to redesign its main homepage and related internal pages to increase customer engagement within a highly competitive travel market.

The homepage needed to support key business goals including increased visits, higher click-through rates, additional purchases, and subscription sign-ups.

The work required a design direction that felt modern and credible while remaining approachable to everyday travelers.

Challenge & Opportunity

The largest challenge was balancing brand reinforcement, business needs, and the emotional expectations of travel customers.

The site needed to feel trustworthy and financially sound while still communicating the excitement of travel. It could not become so sterile or overly sophisticated that it felt distant from the average user.

The opportunity was to create a design direction that felt modern, timeless, welcoming, and travel-focused without overplaying the idea of “jet setting.”

Audience & User Behavior

Research and persona work revealed that online travel shoppers skewed younger than many internal assumptions suggested.

Older users were more likely to rely on the call center, while the online audience was primarily women between the ages of 18 and 52.

This helped frame the homepage as both a marketing and trust-building experience: users needed to feel confident enough to make a significant travel purchase online.

My Contribution

As Designer, I contributed homepage concepts, web marketing graphics, visual direction, and supporting design assets.

• Designed homepage and internal page concepts
• Supported customer engagement and marketing goals
• Balanced brand standards with fresh design direction
• Collaborated with UX leadership, content, and development teams
• Created reusable web components and design artifacts
• Helped support consistency across future web design needs

Key Design Decision

The most important design decision was creating a visual direction that balanced trust and aspiration.

Travel purchases often involve meaningful financial decisions. Users needed to feel that Orbitz was reliable, professional, and capable, while also being inspired by the possibilities of travel.

The design needed to support both sides of that decision: confidence and excitement.

Beyond the Assignment

After completing my assigned work ahead of schedule, I independently created a component library for Orbitz web artifacts using Adobe Fireworks.

At the time, each designer was expected to manage their own contributions, but project load was high and time was limited. I saw an opportunity to help the team by organizing reusable components and design assets in a more consistent way.

I completed the component library without being asked and left it as a parting gift for management on my final day of the assignment. The effort was received with gratitude and helped reinforce a more scalable approach to future web design work.

Outcome

The redesign supported Orbitz’s efforts to increase engagement, click-throughs, purchases, and subscriptions while reinforcing a stronger consumer-facing brand experience.

The persona and demographic findings also helped clarify who was using the online experience and how digital behaviors differed from call-center reliance.

The component library added longer-term value by helping future designers and teams work more consistently across web artifacts.

Reflection

Looking back, I would place even greater emphasis on demographic data, location awareness, and personalization.

Modern travel experiences can be highly tailored based on login status, geographic location, travel patterns, destination interests, and behavioral signals.

Today, I would explore region-based offers, personalized travel recommendations, and content that adapts more directly to each user’s context and intent.

Travel is emotional. Good travel design earns trust before it asks for a purchase.