Driving Growth Through Travel & Flight Booking Redesign
Design, Marketing, Data SEO, Product, Engineering, Exec
Overview
FYI: The version of Redtag.ca shown in this case study reflects the redesign completed prior to the company’s sale to H.I.S. Co Ltd. Since the change in ownership, the site’s design and user experience have evolved in ways that differ from the work presented here. Redtag.ca’s redesign focused on simplifying the user journey and clarifying the visual hierarchy to make travel planning feel effortless. When I returned to the company after a few years away, I noticed that much of the foundational UX and product work I had originally contributed to had been altered or broken, creating unnecessary friction in the booking experience. The previous layout had become visually cluttered and lacked a unified brand voice—diminishing usability across devices. The refreshed design introduced a cleaner, more cohesive aesthetic that aligned with Redtag’s evolving "customized travel" brand direction. By decluttering navigation, refining the visual content hierarchy, and enhancing responsiveness, the redesign delivered a calmer, more intuitive booking experience—helping users reach their intended destinations faster and with less friction.
Problems
The old Redtag.ca website suffered from significant usability and design issues. Visual clutter and an outdated aesthetic made it difficult for users to focus on key content, while the lack of cohesiveness and brand consistency weakened the overall experience. The homepage was overloaded with a heavy navigation bar and excessive content that didn’t necessarily match visitor needs, while the most-used feature—the search engine for booking travel—was deprioritized and placed below the fold. A separate search in the header often caused confusion, with users mistakenly using it to book travel when that was not its intended purpose. Navigation and booking flows were unclear, hierarchy was inconsistent, and numerous bugs disrupted the journey, leading to frustration and a loss of trust in the platform.
Problems with the Old Website
Visually cluttered layout with outdated, inconsistent design.
Homepage overloaded with a heavy nav and excessive, low-priority content.
Most-used booking search engine buried below the fold.
Booking flights had the highest bounce rate and was the lowest performing product.
Secondary header search often misused for booking, causing confusion.
Unclear hierarchy and confusing navigation/booking flows.
Numerous bugs that disrupted the booking process and eroded trust.
Challenges
Strong pressure from the Executive team to launch quickly, as this was the company’s most visited and profitable website, attracting millions of monthly visitors.
Limited developer resources to support the redesign and implementation.
Lack of clear objectives and direction from management, requiring the design team to define priorities and drive alignment.
Approach
Our approach centered on reducing cognitive overload, prioritizing the most-used features, and improving the flight booking flow—one of the site’s most broken experiences and the highest source of user drop-off.
We began with a UX audit informed by analytics, heatmaps, and user feedback to identify friction points and opportunities. To validate these findings and uncover deeper pain points, we planned user testing on the existing flight booking journey. Observing users navigate the flow would help us capture behavioral insights, confirm frustrations, and guide redesign priorities with confidence.
From there, we made the flight search engine the centerpiece of the homepage, moving it above the fold in the hero to make it instantly accessible. Simplifying navigation and streamlining homepage content helped cut distractions and keep the focus on what mattered most to users: finding and booking travel quickly.
The flight booking flow received particular attention, as research showed it was confusing, repetitive, and inflexible. We restructured results to highlight the information users care about most and introduced flexibility in selecting outbound and return flights without forcing unnecessary scrolling.
With limited developer resources and executive pressure to launch quickly, we leveraged existing frameworks and components for efficient implementation. This allowed us to deliver a cleaner, more intuitive experience on an accelerated timeline—reducing friction, increasing conversions, and creating a more reliable path to booking.
Research
To better understand how travellers experienced the old Redtag.ca booking flow, we mapped the end-to-end journey. This process captured user goals, pain points, and emotions at each stage—from search to booking. The insights revealed where friction was highest, such as hidden search features, confusing results layouts, and missing information. By visualizing the journey, we identified clear opportunities to reduce cognitive overload, surface the most important information, and create a smoother, more reliable path to booking.
Journey Mapping the flight search experience:
As part of our research, we set out to understand which flight details travellers value most when making booking decisions. We asked participants to rank key information—such as price, departure/arrival times, duration, stops, baggage, fare class, airline, aircraft, terminal, and amenities—from most to least important. What we learned was clear: when critical details were hidden or buried deeper in the flow, users became frustrated, backtracked, or even abandoned their booking altogether. These insights highlighted how essential it is to present the right details upfront to reduce friction and build user confidence in their choices.
Flight Detail Prioritization Insights
As part of our research, we set out to understand which flight details travelers value most when making booking decisions. We asked participants to rank key information—such as price, departure/arrival times, duration, stops, baggage, fare class, airline, aircraft, terminal, and amenities—from most to least important.
Across interviews, a clear hierarchy emerged:
What we learned was that travellers expect the top five details—price, times, duration, stops and baggage info—to be visible immediately when comparing options. When these were hidden or buried deeper in the flow, users became frustrated, backtracked, or even abandoned their booking altogether. These insights highlighted how essential it is to surface the right details upfront to reduce friction and build user confidence in their choices.
Final Designs
The redesign focused on creating a cleaner, more intuitive booking experience that aligned with both user needs and business goals. At the core, we prioritized fixing the flights booking flow, which had the highest drop-off rate. Departure and return flights were separated, giving users more flexibility to mix and match options rather than being locked into preset bundles. Each flight result displayed the most important details—such as price, times, duration, layovers, baggage, and airline—while a mix of mid to low information was tucked into an accordion-style reveal to reduce cognitive overload.
New flight search results prioritizing the most important information based on user interviews:
The most-used feature—the search engine—was elevated above the fold into the hero, putting it front and centre for immediate access to the primary conversion path. The rest of the homepage was cleaned up and simplified to focus on the content visitors valued most: the latest deals, top destinations, vacation packages, and flight offers. Navigation was restructured into clear categories, and a cohesive design system was applied to unify the look and feel, improving aesthetics, readability, and accessibility. We also addressed persistent bugs that had disrupted the booking process, creating a stable, trustworthy platform. Together, these improvements delivered a faster, more intuitive, and more conversion-focused experience for millions of monthly visitors.
Results
The redesign significantly reduced friction in the booking journey, making it faster and easier for users to find and book travel. By placing the search engine front and center, simplifying the homepage, and fixing critical bugs, we saw higher conversion rates and a noticeable drop in abandonment during the search process. The clearer, more intuitive flow also led to fewer calls to customer service, as users could complete their bookings without confusion or errors. Combined with improved site stability, these changes created a smoother, more reliable experience that both increased user satisfaction and drove measurable business results. In the redesigned search results, we introduced a more flexible approach by separating the selection of departure and return flights, allowing travelers to mix and match options rather than feeling locked into preset bundles. Each flight result surfaces the most important details upfront—such as price, times, duration, and baggage—making it easy to scan and compare at a glance. To reduce cognitive overload, less critical information is tucked away in an accordion-style reveal, giving users the choice to expand only when they need more details. This balance of clarity and flexibility created a smoother, more confident booking experience.
