Designing
Hourly Booking
Company: Getmyboat (biggest marketplace for boat rentals with 150K listings in 184 countries)
Role & team: I lead the research and design part of the project.
Timeline: Dec 2022 - Apr 2023, 4 months
Result: Increased number of hourly bookings, better position among competitor apps, decreased cancellations, improved owner and renter experience, better support for instant booking feature.
Addressing a Blocker Causing Business Loss, and Users Frustration
Led the research. Interviewed team members and owners, secondary research, and competitor analysis.
Getmyboat marketplace's calendar functionality has, for many years, only supported daily availability (when the booking is confirmed, the whole day becomes unavailable).
I collected evidence of how pressing the hourly availability was. I interviewed owners, collected feedback from the team, and did secondary research and competitor analysis.
My findings were that the absence of hourly availability negatively affected:
The revenue. Short hourly bookings made the whole day unavailable, and owners and platform were losing renters interested in the same date.
Relationships with owners and renters. Owners were unhappy that our calendar function didn’t support their business needs. Some were taking the risk of keeping the whole day available, which led to double bookings and complications with renters.
Adoption of other features. Owners refused to try the instabook feature because of the absence of hourly availability.
Perception of our product. The lack of a calendar that supports hourly availability was below industry standards (not suitable for big operators).
Mapping Multiple Calendar Dependencies to Figure out Design and Release Plan
Collaborated with PM to collect all the areas of the current function affected by the hourly calendar.
Since the calendar connects all the app parts, the first step to introducing a new functionality to the calendar was to understand how it would affect the rest of the platform.
Together with the Product Manager, we mapped all the dependencies. This helped our team better understand the scope. We quickly realized that the project was bigger than we initially thought, and we needed to pace ourselves to finish it before the deadline.
Calendar Designs and Team's Disagreements
Created calendar designs and suggested a compromise solution.
When I began designing the calendar, our team was excited about the concept of an hourly grid. The idea was that an hourly grid would help find event conflicts and make it easy for owners to visualize their schedules.
However, as I delved deeper, I realized the hourly grid might not meet all our owners' needs, especially those handling high event volumes. I proposed keeping the list view as MVP. However, the team opposed the idea of sticking to the list view.
To overcome the initial attachment to the hourly grid idea, I presented alternative versions backed by real user data. Following discussions on limitations, we collectively decided on a list grid solution, ensuring scalability for businesses of all sizes. With aligned efforts, we successfully completed the designs on schedule.
Accessibility & Readability Enhancements
Updated designs of all the existing elements of the calendar that were causing accessibility concerns.
Calendar cards - better labels
Fixed color contrast issues
Better label structure to support screen readers
Listing labels are specially added for owners (instead of labels renters see) to support better finding and recognizing information. Support for users with ADHD and learning disabilities.
Reduced visual noise
The Next Step: Settings and Warning System to Preventing Double Bookings
Designed an overbooking warning system and integration with Instabook.
As previously mentioned, the calendar is connected to various product sections. Once our team approved the calendar design, I addressed these other sections.
Initially, I focused on enhancing the booking settings, which empower users to establish availability rules for bookings. In this update:
I refined the wording and labels for clarity.
I revamped the first setting and updated the second one.
We introduced the multiple edit mode to ensure we cater to all user scenarios and accommodate businesses of all sizes. This mode allows settings to be applied to multiple listings simultaneously.
To make sure owners can easily discover and be alerted about booking conflicts we introduced a warning system. The time conflict warning system connected calendar and inbox and alerted owners about bookings and possible bookings occurring during the unavailable time.
Testing revealed Owners Need More Control Over Their Schedules
Run usability tests and interviews with owners.
After finalizing the designs, we conducted usability tests and conversed with owners. These discussions unveiled overall satisfaction with the new functionality but also highlighted specific use cases that weren't addressed. Given the recurring feedback from owners, we expanded the scope to include owners' ability to manage the availability of particular events in the calendar.
Applying Hourly Calendar for Booking Inquiry
Reviewed and designed an updated booking inquiry flow.
A great portion of all bookings on Getmyboat occur during the booking inquiry process. Renters send inquiries to owners, owners submit their offers, and renters book the offers. We needed to review the whole process to incorporate hourly bookings in the inquiry process. While reviewing it, we discovered more ways to make the inquiry more relevant for both owner and renter.
Added messages to the calendar to warn renters about available times
Combined date and time selectors to make the browsing and editing experience seamless
Worked with a variant of a flow for multi-day bookings
We updated the duration selector to make it easier to understand
Added validations to the duration
Hourly Calendar for Listings and Instantly Bookable Trips
Integrated hourly calendar to listings and instant trips.
To ensure renters are informed about listing availability and whether or not they send an inquiry, we added hourly availability messages directly on the listing calendar. Additionally, we ensured that only available times could be selected for instantly bookable trips. After evaluating the placement of our calendar on the listing page, we opted to include a link to it in the sticky footer for easy access by renters at all times. Previously, the calendar was positioned well below the fold on the listing page.
Staged Implementation
Assisted PM, dev and QA team with implementation and testing.
Due to the size of the project, our PM divided it into several parts. I made sure that all the designs were readily available and prepared for the dev team. I also helped the team test the implementation of the project before the release.
Impact of the Hourly Bookings
The deployment of the Hourly Booking feature introduced a notable shift in the booking process, allowing users to reserve specific hours rather than entire days. This improvement received extremely positive feedback from boat owners, particularly owners whose businesses rely on multiple daily bookings.
Following its implementation declined inquiries decreased, and booking offers increased slightly. As a result, the overall booking rate experienced a modest but meaningful 1% uptick, reflecting the efficacy of the Hourly Booking feature.
Beyond its immediate business impact, the Hourly Bookings feature holds strategic significance, as it extends support to a broader spectrum of businesses and serves as a base for a great number of other features, thus advancing Getmyboat's position towards becoming a leader in the boat rental market.
Copyright © 2025
Anastasia Zolotova.
Contact:
zoloto.anastasia[at]gmail.com