Google A Room with a View: Understanding Users Stages in Picking a Hotel Online - Manual

A Room with a View: Understanding
Users’ Stages in Picking a Hotel Online
Abstract
We describe how we built a model for user decision-
making during local search tasks, specifically hotels. We
differentiate between affective and functional needs and
identify the following stages and related information
needs: 0. Lay of the land; 1. Generating options; 2.
Scanning for attractors and detractors; 3. Due
diligence. We contrast this framework with existing
consumer decision-making models. We close by
describing how this model influenced the development
of the recently launched experiment, Google Hotel
Finder.
Keywords
Local search; consumer decision-making; online search
ACM Classification Keywords
H.5.2. [User Interfaces]: User-centered design;
General Terms
Design, Human Factors
Introduction
A quick comparison of a set of typical local searches,
such as ‘shops’, ‘bars, ‘restaurants’, ‘hotels’ shows that
searches for hotels were the most frequent of this
group in the US in 2010 [2]. Yet choosing a hotel Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
CHI 2012, May 5–10, 2012, Austin, TX, USA.
ACM 978-1-4503-1016-1/12/05
Jens Riegelsberger
Google UK
76 Buckingham Palace Road
London, SW1W 9TQ, UK
[email protected]
Michelle Lee
Google Inc.
76 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10011, US
[email protected]
Scott Lederer
Google Inc.
76 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10011, US
[email protected]