Holiday Houses

Client: Trade Me
Year: 2018 - 2019
Role: Design Lead

Holiday Houses has over 9,000 rental properties all over New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands.

I worked as a design Lead within the Holiday Houses team, across a range of projects.

Holiday Houses was in need of a new look, as it hadn’t been updated in years and was losing users to competitors as a result.

Landing users in a better place.

The homepage was redesigned to put more focus on the search bar. For users that were unsure of what exactly they wanted, suggestions and a discovery section were added to provide a way forward.

Improved search results

The search experience was redesigned to put more focus on imagery and reviews. We also added more ways for users to refine their search, with more usable filters alongside a switchable map and gallery view.

A refined listing page

Finally, the listing page was updated to put a focus on photos, pricing and availability, the most important factors for our users.

Creating a messaging system for our owners and guests

Holiday Houses needed a way for owners and renters to quickly get in touch with each other, without leaving the platform. The solution? Create a new, simple messaging system that owners and renters of all demographics are comfortable using.

Always available

It was important to create a responsive experience, as messaging should be available all the time.

A sense of familiarity

Creating a simple and familiar layout helped to inspire confidence in our users. We decided not to stray too far from other popular messaging apps, and our competitors, to make sure that the learning curve was as small as possible.