This. I still (grudgingly) use them because they also seem to have figured out that its important that your booking process works and it's friction-free, and they often do have the best price.
But if I find an alternative that has the same width of offers and a booking process that doesn't feel like a drill sergeant constantly yelling "BOOK NOW YOU WORTHLESS SCUM, BOOK, BOOK, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR YOU IMBECILE, CLICK IT, BOOK, NOW, NOW" - what do they think will happen?
Booking.com A/B tests everything: the drill-sergeant-like funnel probably has higher conversion rates than any gentler variation. So to answer your question - they think you might not book through them without the shoutiness.
Booking is obsessed with maximizing conversions, which just leads to dark patterns.
One lessons from all these things is they maximize for what’s easiest to measure, not what’s most important. Conversions aren’t the end all be all, nobody wants to come back to a store with the pushy salesperson.
That's putting it lightly. It's an abomination of a website. Truly an assault on the senses. Just booked through them yesterday, to save a few bucks-- never again.
Now I understand why it's so bad-- "user interface optimization models"
I refuse to believe this brings real value. The more plausible reality is, they have fantastic SEO and a tightening stranglehold on marketshare, and some AI to squeeze a few more pennies out along the way. Whatever metrics they are seeing, it won't be worth it in the long run. This kind of UX and product won't last.
Apart from the seo, they use a lot of money from the cut they get from the hotel to outbid the hotel on paid ads. They are more than anything a marketing agency.
I've learned to ignore the dark patterns. Still use them because their free cancellation booking process takes a lot of the pain out of picking a hotel.
Deceiving, tricking and pressuring users into taking actions.
For example, LinkedIn having a flow that has an e-mail and password box, which will get a less attentive user to just re-enter their LinkedIn credentials. But it's actually a phishing form for your e-mail, so if your LinkedIn and e-mail password is the same, you have now "consented" to have your address book scraped and your contacts spammed.
Or, in the case of Booking.com:
* Every step has items designed to pressure you to book NOW because it'll be too late otherwise:
- "booked x times in the last x hours" on the listing, or
- "Only 1 room left!" (they now add "on our site" after they lost a consumer protection lawsuit)
- Showing booked-out listings "You missed it"
- Various notifications like "last booked X minutes ago" and "limited supply" popping in while you're scrolling to raise the pressure
* Misleading or deceptive claims
- "Jackpot, this is the cheapest price you've seen" (emphasis should be on "you've seen", this will be shown even if you look at overpriced properties)
- They seem to have stopped the "one person looking at this property" thing (to make you think that it may be gone if you don't book now - that one person is you), probably after being forced to do so by court
- a misleading rating system (the lowest possible rating is 2.5/10, and you rate category-by-category, which means that if the staff is friendly and the hotel is in a good location etc. but the rats and cockroaches ate your luggage while you slept, that's an 8/10 property - in practice, you should assume that anything below 8 is not good, below 7.5 is bad, below 7 is catastrophic, below 6 you may not survive)
- I'd also assume that they mess with the reviews in various ways, like showing mostly positive ones etc., but I haven't verified that.
Overall, I like to compare the booking experience with a drill sergeant yelling into your ear to convert (book) right now, NOW, DO IT, NOW, YOU MAGGOT! They seem to have improved significantly over previous experiences with them, probably due to a combination of me getting used to ignore the yelling, or because they realized that such a bad experience pushes customers away, or because their practices got banned one by one.
It's a shame, because other than the drill sergeant, their site is great.
Ben Edelman (Harvard, Microsoft) published a study [0] about how dark patterns in the online travel industry help them reach margins up to 25%. He also mentions the consolidation where most well-known booking sites are owned by just two large groups.
i just want to note that "dark patterns" appear because it could be just one more A/B test that booking.com obsessively implements again and again. If the tested pattern does not help to increase conversion rate, it will be shut down. what's wrong with that?
tgsovlerkhgsel|6 years ago
But if I find an alternative that has the same width of offers and a booking process that doesn't feel like a drill sergeant constantly yelling "BOOK NOW YOU WORTHLESS SCUM, BOOK, BOOK, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR YOU IMBECILE, CLICK IT, BOOK, NOW, NOW" - what do they think will happen?
sangnoir|6 years ago
Booking.com A/B tests everything: the drill-sergeant-like funnel probably has higher conversion rates than any gentler variation. So to answer your question - they think you might not book through them without the shoutiness.
softwaredoug|6 years ago
One lessons from all these things is they maximize for what’s easiest to measure, not what’s most important. Conversions aren’t the end all be all, nobody wants to come back to a store with the pushy salesperson.
duxup|6 years ago
commandlinefan|6 years ago
Just like the unholy abomination that professional project managers have turned “agile methodologies” into.
rhizome|6 years ago
I bet a "How to dox and stalk people with Python" post would be flagged down, so maybe I'm just complaining about the prevailing ethics on the site.
brendanmc6|6 years ago
Now I understand why it's so bad-- "user interface optimization models"
I refuse to believe this brings real value. The more plausible reality is, they have fantastic SEO and a tightening stranglehold on marketshare, and some AI to squeeze a few more pennies out along the way. Whatever metrics they are seeing, it won't be worth it in the long run. This kind of UX and product won't last.
joking|6 years ago
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
puranjay|6 years ago
Bootwizard|6 years ago
tgsovlerkhgsel|6 years ago
For example, LinkedIn having a flow that has an e-mail and password box, which will get a less attentive user to just re-enter their LinkedIn credentials. But it's actually a phishing form for your e-mail, so if your LinkedIn and e-mail password is the same, you have now "consented" to have your address book scraped and your contacts spammed.
Or, in the case of Booking.com:
* Every step has items designed to pressure you to book NOW because it'll be too late otherwise:
- "booked x times in the last x hours" on the listing, or
- "Only 1 room left!" (they now add "on our site" after they lost a consumer protection lawsuit)
- Showing booked-out listings "You missed it"
- Various notifications like "last booked X minutes ago" and "limited supply" popping in while you're scrolling to raise the pressure
* Misleading or deceptive claims
- "Jackpot, this is the cheapest price you've seen" (emphasis should be on "you've seen", this will be shown even if you look at overpriced properties)
- They seem to have stopped the "one person looking at this property" thing (to make you think that it may be gone if you don't book now - that one person is you), probably after being forced to do so by court
- a misleading rating system (the lowest possible rating is 2.5/10, and you rate category-by-category, which means that if the staff is friendly and the hotel is in a good location etc. but the rats and cockroaches ate your luggage while you slept, that's an 8/10 property - in practice, you should assume that anything below 8 is not good, below 7.5 is bad, below 7 is catastrophic, below 6 you may not survive)
- I'd also assume that they mess with the reviews in various ways, like showing mostly positive ones etc., but I haven't verified that.
Overall, I like to compare the booking experience with a drill sergeant yelling into your ear to convert (book) right now, NOW, DO IT, NOW, YOU MAGGOT! They seem to have improved significantly over previous experiences with them, probably due to a combination of me getting used to ignore the yelling, or because they realized that such a bad experience pushes customers away, or because their practices got banned one by one.
It's a shame, because other than the drill sergeant, their site is great.
kennethologist|6 years ago
See more examples here: https://www.darkpatterns.org/
dekhn|6 years ago
jhncls|6 years ago
[0] http://www.benedelman.org/impact-of-ota-bias-and-consolidati...
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
rhizome|6 years ago
sAbakumoff|6 years ago
capableweb|6 years ago