Joining to help us look at the world of mobile from a different angle is Hao Xie, Senior App Designer at Booking.com, one of the world's largest travel marketplaces, mediating between hotels, guesthouses, vacation rentals, and their guests. We’ve heard from marketing leaders as they share the brand power apps bring to the table, but we want to dig deeper into the app design itself.
On today’s episode of Masters of MAX, it’s time to shake things up a bit and look at the world of mobile from a different angle. We’ve heard from marketing leaders as they share the brand power apps bring to the table, but we want to dig deeper into the app design itself.
Joining to help us uncover more of the behind the scenes is Hao Xie, Senior App Designer at Booking.com, one of the world's largest travel marketplaces, mediating between hotels, guesthouses, vacation rentals, and their guests. Hao has been with Booking.com for over a year, being brought on to build the native app experience for the Attraction offering.
Hear as Hao and Tom discuss how crucial accessibility is to the mobile experience as it opens the door to millions of users who otherwise would be shut out. An often overlooked aspect of the design process, accessibility impacts everyone, not just those of differing abilities. Hao provides real world examples of inclusive features the team at Booking.com employs to create a more holistic experience.
Additionally, Hao shares a few stories from his time at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. He describes how he and his team were able to get live customer feedback immediately after piloting new features. How? Because they left their desks and asked passengers for their opinions as they waited to board their flights.
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Guest Bio
Hao Xie is an app design enthusiast with experience in diverse industries including agency, global brands, and tech. He has led transformative design projects for Air France's and KLM's apps, improved the core funnel of the Adidas consumer app with measurable results, and is now creating the foundation of a native app experience for attractions at Booking.com from scratch.
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Guest Quote
"Accessibility matters in so many, many ways. Especially at Booking.com, our brand mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. And there's a word in this sentence, which is everyone. And by everyone, it should literally mean everyone." – Hao Xie
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Time Stamps
*(01:08) Hao’s Background
*(03:03) How to merge two apps together seamlessly
*(08:15) Testing prototypes in real time with real people
*(11:07) Going from physical to digital experiences
*(13:08) Creating a native app
*(16:21) The importance of experimentation
*(17:11) Accessibility at Booking.com
*(19:51) How to focus deeply on your consumers' experience
*(23:14) Rapid Fire Questions
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Links
[00:00:00] Hao Xie: Accessibility matters in so many ways, especially with booking.com. Our brand mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. And there's a word in this sentence, which is everyone, and by everyone, which literally means. Everyone. And there are many, many examples that has proved that if you optimize your products for people with different needs, actually they will generate business value as well.
[00:00:26] Hao Xie: It's the right thing to do, and we should just do it for our product.
[00:00:32] Producer: Welcome to Masters of Max, a mobile app experience podcast. Please welcome your host, Tom Butta, chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at airship.
[00:00:45] Tom Butta: Welcome to Masters of Max. We have a great guest today, Al Shia from booking.com, and a different kind of experience that we're bringing to the podcast today. Uh, someone that truly comes from, uh, the design world. And as you know, user experience really makes a difference when it comes to, when it comes to apps.
[00:01:04] Tom Butta: So welcome, Hal, welcome to the show. Thank you.
[00:01:07] Hao Xie: Thank you. Tom. Perhaps
[00:01:09] Tom Butta: you can just tell our listeners a little bit about your background and. And really how you got into, uh, app design.
[00:01:15] Hao Xie: I think I started my career in a design agency here in the Netherlands called Fan and as a designer. And there we worked on all kinds of projects in terms of user interface designs such as coffee machine cars, public bus displays, stuff like that.
[00:01:31] Hao Xie: Also from there, I got my interest on mobile apps because I feel like there can really form a relationship with the user, with the customer. Um, so from there on, I started looking for opportunities within mobile app. And then I first landed on Calem Royal Dutch Airlines to be a designer in a mobile app team there.
[00:01:50] Hao Xie: I worked for, um, around three years on the traveling industry, servicing travelers from all over the world to a user service from Cal Royal Dutch Airlines. Uh, from there on, I also, uh, moved down to Adidas, uh, which is a bigger brand. Also, they have more apps than km, so also more audience, more people using their apps as well, uh, where I worked on different projects such as how to guide people through their extensive product catalog of Adidas to find the right one for them.
[00:02:22] Hao Xie: After that, I landed on my current position in booking.com, uh, in the attractions app team. Basically to build a native app funnel for attractions in booking.com app, and I see this a very nice combination of both words of my previous jobs. You know, combining travel experience also with the e-commerce experience to really make this experience great for the users.
[00:02:47] Tom Butta: Wow. It's, it's quite an extensive background. So, so you went broad at the agency. You, you actually were involved in lots of different design projects and then you came into the company and you were, you know, really focused. Um, similar background to my own, actually. Nice. So I have a question then, uh, regarding your first role, uh, at K L M.
[00:03:08] Tom Butta: Dutch Airlines. So you said that there were, um, I think two apps at the time. So how did you go about, uh, integrating the two into one?
[00:03:20] Hao Xie: Yeah, that's a, a good question. And indeed the k m Royal Dutch Airlines actually, uh, the same company with, uh, air Froms financially, but they have two brands and they also have two separate apps working separately and serving sometimes different people, sometimes same group of people.
[00:03:36] Hao Xie: For us, we got a assignment where we need to, uh, phase out certain components of the app and rebuild it completely from scratch and to reuse that in both apps. So, uh, that was a, a challenging for us where we have a very short deadline. Uh, we need to deliver things strictly, strictly on time because otherwise there'll be certain components of the app missing once the, the phase out happened.
[00:04:03] Hao Xie: Um, so there we actually had formed a team. From two brands, from four locations in the world. We had people from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, also people from Chennai, India and also from, uh, Paris and Toulu in France. And also, you need to know that this all happened before Covid, meaning remote working was not really a thing back then, but we need to adapt to that.
[00:04:29] Hao Xie: So that was quite a, uh, a nice and also complex experience to me.
[00:04:36] Tom Butta: It probably set you up for, uh, being comfortable working with remote, uh, yeah, exactly. And very, very teams, right? Yeah. Yeah. So how, how actually did you make that work? Because I think it's, it's, it's hard enough having, you know, you've got two brands with different points of view.
[00:04:52] Tom Butta: Was it a centralized group that had to bring these different parts together and come up with the new plan? How, how did that work?
[00:05:01] Hao Xie: Uh, yeah, I could definitely tell a bit more on that. Uh, so as I mentioned, we started by forming team, so we wanted to make sure that both brands are equally voiced in this project.
[00:05:11] Hao Xie: So we had kind of an equal split in terms of functions. So for example, if we had six developers, we would have three from Air Farms and three from K L M. And we also have designers from both sides as well to work in the same team. And we also have product manager or other analysts also from different teams.
[00:05:28] Hao Xie: So kinda make sure the teams are equal in the beginning. So we avoid any bias in the project. And in terms of process, after we form the team, we need to agree on how we're gonna work together from four locations all over the world. So one approach we definitely had was to ensure we meet up every three month personally, either in France or in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
[00:05:49] Hao Xie: Which actually makes sense because we're considering we're airline s so it's easier to bring people face to face. Uh, so we have that, uh, like in person moments every three months. To not only discuss our own planning, but also to communicate our commitments to stakeholders. So telling them, okay, this is what we can deliver in the next three months, and according to our plan, this would meet our final deadlines.
[00:06:14] Hao Xie: So once we have all, uh, the buy-in from stakeholders and also, um, the commitment from the team, then we will start working on for the next three months in the Agile basis. Uh, so this was actually quite a, a nice setup because. You can break down the big projects, a big deadline into smaller chunks, and also make sure everyone is informed in the process.
[00:06:36] Hao Xie: So this worked quite well. Also, a very important factor for this process is of course, having fun and building the trust in a team. So we also took the opportunity where we met. To plan something fun together, team building a dinner somewhere, because building trust is even more important when you are working remotely.
[00:06:56] Hao Xie: That we all know now after Covid, but we need to figure out back then. So yeah, I think those are the very important factors.
[00:07:03] Tom Butta: It sounds like you, you made some really, really important and logical, uh, decisions about how to bring these teams together. Um, I, I love your points there about, you know, your primary objective was to avoid bias, right?
[00:07:17] Tom Butta: To make sure that everyone was well represented, you needed to get together often, which set the deadlines for your project flow, right? These three month agile sprints. Yeah. And then you, you know, you, you brought in the human factor, which was. Ultimately to get to know people. You know, usually you can do that by an experience in your case, it was an in-person experience of having fun and then you know, that built trust, right?
[00:07:43] Tom Butta: So, so that, I think that's an interesting sort of segue to, I. My next question, and I'll just stick to this right now, to the K L M or France situation, but I think it applies to all the work you've done since then and basically to, to every brand. And that is how did you bring in not just the team's point of view, but how did the team represent the end user or the customer's point of view and the things that they value, you know, the experiences that they value and the, and the ones that they don't.
[00:08:15] Hao Xie: So when we were working at, uh, km, we had, uh, access to the airport. So we could actually send application. So then we can go to the air site of the airport, which means after the security check, we could go there to run regular gorilla testing. That's how we call it. So gorilla testing, basically, meaning you'll be in prototype to a, uh, people, um, just ask like very rapid questions for 10 to 15 minutes to get some quick feedback on the design you're building.
[00:08:44] Hao Xie: So we did that quite often at km. Uh, almost so in person. Yeah, in person, exactly. Yeah. Really interesting. So basically in the whole process, uh, of the designing, we will, every time we have some concern, little questions we're not sure about, we cannot really conclude or proceed, just build a very quick prototype and go to the airport and to test with real travelers.
[00:09:05] Hao Xie: That also brings you a lot of insights, like how they approach the app, because you know, Airport to me is always very interesting place because it contains people with different emotions, different moods, uh, different state of the travel. You sometimes get very, you know, grumpy traveler who are annoyed by the delay, and you ask them, you approach 'em, they might give you different insights that people are nicely resting in the lounge, you know, having nice champagne or whatever.
[00:09:29] Hao Xie: So all those kind of mixed feelings, because the diversity of the airport give you also a diverse insights on your products. So we incorporated that into our design process. Make sure that all our decisions, all our design decisions, all our, um, things we're not sure about is backed by the insights from the real travelers.
[00:09:50] Hao Xie: So that's how we go about this, uh, bringing the user perspective into the table of the project.
[00:09:55] Tom Butta: Wow, I love that. And, and what I especially love is what you pointed out, which is people are having a different type of experience typically in any given day. Yeah, exactly right and right. In some cases it's a positive experience.
[00:10:07] Tom Butta: In some cases it's a negative experience and in other cases there's just stuff going on in their lives. And so you, you really got to interface in the moment, right, with people and within whatever it was they were dealing with. What great insight, wow. So just to underscore that, when you talked about avoiding bias, I think this is another way of avoiding bias, right?
[00:10:30] Tom Butta: Avoiding your own bias of your own experience because you travel, right? And so you, therefore, everybody must have the same experience. Well, actually no, that's not the case. Exactly. So that's really cool. And I, I would expect that. You really built a great level of trust, you know, with people just by asking, even if they weren't necessarily, I don't know in the moment for wanting to share in the most positive ways.
[00:10:54] Tom Butta: You, you, you dealt with the reality of life, right?
[00:10:58] Hao Xie: Yeah, exactly. I. The worst answer you get is, no, I don't have time. Okay, just pass on and then find the next, the passenger. So yeah, you have nothing to lose. Yeah.
[00:11:07] Tom Butta: Very cool. Something else I'd like to talk about when you, we were talking about Adidas, so it's interesting now.
[00:11:13] Tom Butta: You worked at a company that actually has physical product, meaning airlines, and you worked at another company that has physical products, you know, in, in Aidas, and now, You're at booking.com where you're representing other people's physical products and experiences. So tell me about the transition and what attracted you to join there.
[00:11:32] Tom Butta: Yeah,
[00:11:32] Hao Xie: I think in general, the position booking.com attracts me because it was a great opportunity to build things from scratch again. So you might notice I like building things from scratch. You're a
[00:11:43] Tom Butta: builder. You're
[00:11:44] Hao Xie: a builder. Exactly. So, um, that was definitely very, uh, attractive for me because, The essential reason behind this because every time you build something from scratch, you have a chance to, you know, get rid of a legacy and really start doing things right from the start.
[00:12:00] Hao Xie: And the second reason why, uh, this, uh, position is attractive to me is because indeed booking.com is a very different company compared to the two companies I work for is a kind of standalone company, completely relying on the digital services provide to connect people to. Either physical product or services that other partners provide.
[00:12:24] Hao Xie: And I joined because Booking also has it's very mature tech company as well. I also want to learn how it feels like to work in a tech company compared to a digital department in a code traditional company.
[00:12:38] Tom Butta: So it's a digital first company.
[00:12:40] Hao Xie: Exactly. And it has been great so far. I love it. And uh, so the building things from scratch part is definitely very exciting.
[00:12:48] Hao Xie: So I got to, uh, push a lot of things, uh, in a team such as accessibility and we run experiments and to validate our decisions. And also because booking.com is a quite tech company, we got a lot of resources available for us to build the right product. So it feels great.
[00:13:08] Tom Butta: So you mentioned before you used the words native, um, I think you talked about creating a native ad funnel.
[00:13:14] Tom Butta: But, um, maybe can you talk about, you know, we're hearing more and more, can you talk about the idea of what do you mean by native? From a user perspective on your side, but also from, you know, end user or customer's experience?
[00:13:29] Hao Xie: Yeah, so native. For us, meaning we are building the app based on the native technology on the platform, so from Native iOS, a native Android platform.
[00:13:41] Hao Xie: So we're going to harness all the possibilities that Native platform can provide for us to create a seamless experience for the user. For us, the decision was quite straightforward because, uh, booking.com has other business as well, and we already have a native app running for years and other parts of business are already having the native flow already.
[00:14:03] Hao Xie: It's only that for our attraction flow. It was web-based. Uh, so the decision was straightforward. We just need to replace the web view flow with a native
[00:14:13] Tom Butta: flow. The reason you did that is, as I understand from our own experience with other brands, is the experience for the end user is much better. Is that Yeah,
[00:14:23] Hao Xie: exactly.
[00:14:23] Hao Xie: Because if you bring better experience for user, it can also bring better business results. Of course. For me, the choice between Native and the WebView really depends on the budget and the purpose of the flow. We'll see that there's still places for web view in the app, for example. Sometimes you might have different pages with which are not often used by users.
[00:14:44] Hao Xie: Maybe they are completely for content display. You could maybe use a web view to make it easier. Also make it more dynamic so the accountant can update easier. Mm-hmm. Um, more frequently based on the situation. And also right now the information can pass down from native to web also has improved. It can actually pass a lot of information.
[00:15:05] Hao Xie: Still. I think for a enterprise, especially the size@booking.com, uh, we aim for Native because it just can create a much more smooth experience for the users.
[00:15:16] Tom Butta: Do you think this is something that other companies will follow and in terms of a best practice optimizing more for Native where it makes sense?
[00:15:26] Hao Xie: Yeah, I think it definitely depends on the size of company and also the, again, the budget, their goal. Because I could imagine for a, you know, for example, startup, they might not have all the money in the world and they want to quickly test the idea, their mobile app. They might want to choose other framework to quickly deliver the app first, either native or other framework, which might be cheaper, or because it requires less development work.
[00:15:51] Hao Xie: Once they have valid, validated, that they could may as well improve their app later on by transforming it into a native one. So this could still be a valid path for different, you know, different companies. But again, I see at least I see all the apps from big companies see all native, uh, maybe with some web views.
[00:16:11] Hao Xie: So I think when budget is not issue, I would recommend going for native.
[00:16:15] Tom Butta: Okay, cool. So you talked about two other things I'd like to go into a little bit more. You talked about the importance of experimentation. Can you just tell us a little bit more about that and why it's important and how you go about it?
[00:16:28] Hao Xie: Yeah. At booking.com we put everything through the lens of ex experimentation. Uh, we run, uh, test on everything we put on our products because by this we can really know the impact to the actual users. So we can also get a more data informed decision based on experiments. Uh, so we don't just say, okay, this is nice feature.
[00:16:48] Hao Xie: We think it's nice. Release it to see what users say or do about it. We also have pretty mature structure for running experiments@booking.com. So we really look at, look at how uh, each team can set up experiments, run it and analyze it and use it for the day-to-day development work.
[00:17:06] Tom Butta: So it's core, fundamental.
[00:17:08] Tom Butta: Yeah, exactly.
[00:17:09] Hao Xie: It's foundation of booking.com.
[00:17:11] Tom Butta: So the other word you mentioned, which is like a big word, which is accessibility. Can you talk about why accessibility matters? Why you've prioritized it and, you know, give, give us a little perspective on it.
[00:17:27] Hao Xie: Accessibility matters in so many, many ways. Um, sometimes we even know where to start, especially with booking.com.
[00:17:35] Hao Xie: Our brand mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. And there's a word in this sentence, which is everyone, and by everyone, which literally means everyone. So it should make it easier and accessible for everyone to use a product and experience the world. That's the first thing.
[00:17:52] Hao Xie: And secondly, of course, there are so many legal requirements around the world coming up already, actually already quite established in the US that the digital product, especially websites, should be accessible to all people. And also from the business perspective, once you make your products accessible, you actually make it better for everybody.
[00:18:11] Hao Xie: There are many, many examples that has proved that if you optimize your products for people with different needs, actually they will generate business value as well. So there are many, many aspects to approach it, but in general, it's the right thing to do and we should just do it for a product. Are there
[00:18:27] Tom Butta: features that tend to drive better feelings of, of accessibility and usage?
[00:18:35] Tom Butta: Are there app features that you know, I don't know whether it could be. Dark mode, text size or Siri, you know, getting guidance. Um, and I'm just wondering, does anything jump out to you? I
[00:18:46] Hao Xie: would say, um, accessibility is, uh, often not a specific feature for the app. I think indeed, like dark mode or large text, they are like system settings.
[00:18:56] Hao Xie: You can choose to define how, uh, the apps will look like, but for when we approach accessibility in general, we want to approach it as a holistic mindset. To make sure our app is inclusive. So for example, if you want to make sure our app is compatible with dark mode, then you need to make sure the whole app is compatible to dark mode.
[00:19:16] Hao Xie: It doesn't make sense. You have home screen in dark mode and you go to different screen is completely bright, so that doesn't make sense. The same for all the other aspects of accessibility for large texts. You need to make sure that your whole funnel is supporting large text and your whole funnel is supporting string readers because.
[00:19:36] Hao Xie: Every tiny step that went wrong in this process could be a huge blocker for the people who are using that technology. So you need to really, really think thoroughly and holistically to make sure that the whole experience is frictionless from end to end.
[00:19:51] Tom Butta: It's obvious that you have great experience and a great perspective here, and I love.
[00:19:57] Tom Butta: How passionate you are and, and how passionate booking.com is about accessibility and, dare I say, creating, I don't know, a more human focused experience. I mean, what? What are other things that you do to make it feel less of a, uh, you know, e-commerce site? Four people are looking to book this, you know, there's only two rooms left, you know, 19 people are looking at this now.
[00:20:21] Tom Butta: I mean, how do you take it from being just about e-commerce to having it be about the person?
[00:20:27] Hao Xie: That's a question. Um, in general, I see from my own experience in the world of e-commerce, they are. Quite some persuasive technologies being used in all kinds of digital website or apps. And by persuasive technologies, I don't mean it in a bad ways.
[00:20:44] Hao Xie: In a neutral term, basically mean you are introducing certain features to persuade people to take certain actions and can be used in both positive and negative way. The example you mentioned, I can also see like similar example when you go to buy a pair of shoes. And you might like it, and the website tells you there are only four left and the way you integrate it could be both informative or pushy in a way that kind of trying to make, make sure you order it now, right?
[00:21:15] Hao Xie: Sure, sure, sure. Um, but sometimes this information can be useful for people who are actually looking for products that might be a fit for them because, It also sucks when you really want something and you maybe wait a week and okay, it's gone. So that feeling's also really bad, so you'd want that happen to the user as well.
[00:21:35] Hao Xie: There's a fine line in persuading to make it either intimidating or useful or meaningful. So we just need to find that line to make it more humane, basically, to make it more meaningful, to make it more useful, but also, uh, successful business. Within our design team, we are also actively participating in this online course called The Foundation of Human Technology, and there went through the course and also examined our own practice, our own products.
[00:22:04] Hao Xie: If we are introducing certain distortion to people, if we're to introducing any, uh, misinformation behavior, if we are actually, uh, promoting justice and human rights. So that was quite fun experience because, uh, for us, although I'm still very new to my job at Booking, we can really see that we can use these guidelines to help us, to guide us through the design process.
[00:22:29] Hao Xie: To think about do you always have different lens, you know, to look at a design? Is it crossing the line? Do we really need to be that specific or do we need, we need to say that. So this kind of extra lens can really help us, again, to not be biased by our own opinion or perspective, but think of. How different people might view the same piece of information or features even.
[00:22:51] Tom Butta: Sure. I think that's a really evolved perspective and you know, I applaud you and the company for continuously putting you in a position to learn more, and I expect that also experimentation also has an impact here because you actually know which is working versus where you've crossed the line potentially.
[00:23:09] Tom Butta: Exactly. Through these experiments, uh, and the results. Well, this has been a great conversation, Hal, so we're coming to the end, and these are just maybe some rapid fire questions just to have a little bit of fun. So are you ready? Yeah, sure. Okay. All right. Cool. Android or iPhone? iPhone. Is there an app that you personally can't live without?
[00:23:30] Tom Butta: It has to be
[00:23:31] Hao Xie: the camera app. I always keep it in my doc or my iPhone, although you can still quickly access your log stream. But I just, I use cameras very often.
[00:23:40] Tom Butta: Nice. Nice, nice. Are there any new apps or new features or any trends that you are particularly like?
[00:23:48] Hao Xie: I think I'm particularly interested the documented reality headset introduced by Apple.
[00:23:55] Hao Xie: Mm-hmm. But it was definitely very interesting. The whole thing is very cool, but also because introduced a new design language into a new platform. I'm particularly interested in that one. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:05] Tom Butta: So you live in the Netherlands, but you work across the globe. Are there any favorite vacation spots you have?
[00:24:11] Hao Xie: The first country come up on My mind is Thailand the Land of Smiles?
[00:24:17] Tom Butta: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Alright, last question. Is there a show that you're binge watching?
[00:24:21] Hao Xie: I recently finished, uh, the White Lotus, um, oh. The first season is my favorite.
[00:24:28] Tom Butta: First one's your favorite. Interesting. Yeah. Well, I want to thank you for your, your generous time today and, and, and sharing your insights.
[00:24:35] Tom Butta: I wish you a lot of luck in your new role@booking.com and as a user of booking.com. I will, um, look to see if you might have had some influence over some modifications that are being made there. So I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and a and a great weekend.
[00:24:50] Hao Xie: Thank you. You too.
[00:24:52] Producer: Thank you for listening to Masters of Max, a mobile app experience podcast, brought to you by the team at airship.
[00:24:59] Producer: Find out more about how you can help your brand deliver better, more personalized app experiences@airship.com. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to subscribe and rate the show.