Hotel booking process design & usability

5.1.3.1 Using guidance rates with style A 
Although we believe that style B is preferable to style A for evaluating hotels, there are some
helpful improvements that a style-A website can make. An obvious improvement is to display on
screen 2 the range of prices that users will encounter on screen 3 (the rates display page).
TABLE 2: Style A – Rate display examples 
Rate display style 
Examples 
Rate range
FROM > TO
(opodo.co.uk) 
Travel UCD - consultants in travel and hospitality website design 
http://www.travelucd.com 

© Travel UCD Limited 2003. All Rights Reserved.

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Hotel booking process design & usability 
Travel UCD – February 2003 
Rate display style 
Examples 
Rate FROM
(placestostay.com) 

Source: Travel UCD Research, January 2003
TABLE 3: Style A – what rate is displayed on screen 2? 
Rate display – screen 2 
Travel 
agency 
Hotel only 
Hotel chain 
Total 
Rate range – FROM > TO
3
3
1
7
Rate FROM
4
5
-
9
Average rate
1
1
-
2
Example rate
-
1
-
1
No rates displayed
2
3
5
10
Source: Travel UCD Research, January 2003
Table 3 demonstrates that only seven of the 29 websites that apply style A are assisting the user
by giving a rate range (FROM > TO) rather than other, less helpful, rate information.
Implementation note 
It is better to display live rate data on screen 2. If you cannot use live data, non-live
‘approximate’ data would be more helpful than no rate guide information at all.