Crafting clear content for external review scores

Problem

  • My product team aimed to increase the number of homes and apartments with review scores, especially in the US. This would make them more attractive for guests to book and drive more business to property owners.

  • Our plan was to incorporate external review scores: if a property did not have a review score on Booking.com, but was listed on another online travel agency (OTA) and had earned at least three reviews, we would import the reviews and calculate a score on our site.

  • I owned the content strategy for integrating external review scores. I had to make its value clear to guests and partners while at the same time navigating complex user scenarios and strict restrictions from our legal department. 

The findings from my usability testing, validating the positive affects of building trust via interface copy.

My role

  • Worked closely with my designer to build out multi-platform, multi-scenario user flows for guests.

  • Employed Usertesting.com to explore different tones, terminology and content hierarchy that would help me maintain trust while overcoming the primary legal restriction: I was not allowed to tell users the sources of the external reviews.

  • Documented all UX touch points and fielded discussions with legal experts on content and design feasibility. 

  • Aligned with stakeholders to write documentation and marketing material for property owners and account managers to ensure a smooth launch of the product.

The product flows, zooming-in on a mandatory legal placement which I leveraged to bring clarity for guests.

Outcomes

  • Successfully launched external review scores feature, increasing the number of homes and apartments with a review score by 7% globally and 43% in the US.

  • Bookings increased by 12% at the properties with new external review scores.

The external review scores content I crafted for desktop and mobile. The goal was to build trust and fill the unnerving void on search cards.