"Content Overload: Accommodations have very rich content, e.g.descriptions, pictures, reviews and ratings."
Laughed at that one. Booking.com is so full of dark patterns that I dread using it.
Laughed at that one. Booking.com is so full of dark patterns that I dread using it.
But if I find an alternative that has the same width of offers and a booking process that doesn't feel like a drill sergeant constantly yelling "BOOK NOW YOU WORTHLESS SCUM, BOOK, BOOK, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR YOU IMBECILE, CLICK IT, BOOK, NOW, NOW" - what do they think will happen?
Booking.com A/B tests everything: the drill-sergeant-like funnel probably has higher conversion rates than any gentler variation. So to answer your question - they think you might not book through them without the shoutiness.
I'm going to guess the answer is no - which is why organizations have to be careful which metrics they measure and incentivize on. Granted, this failing is industry-wide as the longest view on most orgs' dashboards is YoY. When that metric starts freefalling, it most likely will be too late to do anything about it, but most of the staff (up to the CEO) will have padded Resumes with amazing numbers for improved conversion/revenue which will get them to the next job.
One lessons from all these things is they maximize for what’s easiest to measure, not what’s most important. Conversions aren’t the end all be all, nobody wants to come back to a store with the pushy salesperson.
I made sure to provide feedback.
When people book with you but give you 1/10 stars, that's probably a pretty strong warning sign that the customer isn't happy with the site and the first usable competitor that they find will get their business.
But that leaves you at the mercy of the competition, which in an open data business (I mean, airlines are more than happy to tell you which flights they have available) implies that your product is undifferentiated. So eventually you resort to this tactics: as soon as a user gets in, do anything that's humanly possible to convert that sucker.
That's in essence what's wrong with Booking. This trickles down, unfortunately: Ryanair hides most of its costs in effectively forcing you to upgrade to Premium in order to be treated as something just a bit more than lifestock, because the assumption that travelers' main concern is price pervades the industry, even if the price they are shown isn't the price they pay in the end.
Just like the unholy abomination that professional project managers have turned “agile methodologies” into.
I bet a "How to dox and stalk people with Python" post would be flagged down, so maybe I'm just complaining about the prevailing ethics on the site.
Now I understand why it's so bad-- "user interface optimization models"
I refuse to believe this brings real value. The more plausible reality is, they have fantastic SEO and a tightening stranglehold on marketshare, and some AI to squeeze a few more pennies out along the way. Whatever metrics they are seeing, it won't be worth it in the long run. This kind of UX and product won't last.
For example, LinkedIn having a flow that has an e-mail and password box, which will get a less attentive user to just re-enter their LinkedIn credentials. But it's actually a phishing form for your e-mail, so if your LinkedIn and e-mail password is the same, you have now "consented" to have your address book scraped and your contacts spammed.
Or, in the case of Booking.com:
* Every step has items designed to pressure you to book NOW because it'll be too late otherwise:
- "booked x times in the last x hours" on the listing, or
- "Only 1 room left!" (they now add "on our site" after they lost a consumer protection lawsuit)
- Showing booked-out listings "You missed it"
- Various notifications like "last booked X minutes ago" and "limited supply" popping in while you're scrolling to raise the pressure
* Misleading or deceptive claims
- "Jackpot, this is the cheapest price you've seen" (emphasis should be on "you've seen", this will be shown even if you look at overpriced properties)
- They seem to have stopped the "one person looking at this property" thing (to make you think that it may be gone if you don't book now - that one person is you), probably after being forced to do so by court
- a misleading rating system (the lowest possible rating is 2.5/10, and you rate category-by-category, which means that if the staff is friendly and the hotel is in a good location etc. but the rats and cockroaches ate your luggage while you slept, that's an 8/10 property - in practice, you should assume that anything below 8 is not good, below 7.5 is bad, below 7 is catastrophic, below 6 you may not survive)
- I'd also assume that they mess with the reviews in various ways, like showing mostly positive ones etc., but I haven't verified that.
Overall, I like to compare the booking experience with a drill sergeant yelling into your ear to convert (book) right now, NOW, DO IT, NOW, YOU MAGGOT! They seem to have improved significantly over previous experiences with them, probably due to a combination of me getting used to ignore the yelling, or because they realized that such a bad experience pushes customers away, or because their practices got banned one by one.
It's a shame, because other than the drill sergeant, their site is great.
See more examples here: https://www.darkpatterns.org/
Someone pointed out "confirmshaming" to me a few years ago...and since then I feel like it shows up on > 50% of the sites I visit.
https://www.darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern/confirmsh...
In its best form, perhaps. But more likely than not it looks something like this:
[ ] YES, I want to fight racism by subscribing to CrappyPublisher.net's twice-daily newsletter! [ ] NO, I am a racist (and also a pedophile)!
If I'm cancelling amazon prime because it "costs too much" but you say "are you sure you want to miss out on all the fast shipping" someone who is easily manipulated may continue to subscribe because they are weak willed.
You could instead ask: "Why are you cancelling?":
- Cost
- Don't use it enough
- ...
- Other (please specify:)
[0] http://www.benedelman.org/impact-of-ota-bias-and-consolidati...