Zocdoc Lightning Booking

For a long part of my career at Zocdoc I was part of the team in charge of the booking flow. The booking flow at Zocdoc was historically very hard for teams to improve. Many experiments had been run, but teams weren’t able to get an increase in conversion. But we were tasked with taking another shot with our newly-formed team. I worked closely with the product manager & engineers to design a new version of the flow. Along the way, we conducted lots of research—both on the old flow and on prototypes of the evolving design.

Prototypes

• Legacy (old)
• Lightning (new & improved)

Results

Eventually we were confident enough to release the new version in an A/B test. The result was the first increase in booking conversion in over 5 years! Of the people who started the booking process, 5% more were successfully making it through.

What was better?

Fewer pages

We changed the flow from a wizard to a single page experience for signed-in users. And for users creating an account, account creation was a single page. This was then followed by the single booking page. Editing info—which wasn’t done often—happened in pop-ups. This kept all the related interactions on the same page. It also let us show a summary of info without having to show input fields on the initial view.

Shorter & simpler pages

We simplified a lot of visual clutter and reduced interaction costs like clicks. This led to a more streamlined visual and easier-to-use page.

More familiar format

We made the booking page more of a summary view—closer to e-commerce checkout. This was heavily influenced by Amazon’s checkout experience. This made the page more usable by using a familiar, predictable pattern.

Updated visual design

Zocdoc had recently refreshed their brand. The booking flow wasn’t yet in line with the new updates. We took the opportunity to fix this. This brought the booking flow more in line with the rest of the experience on Zocdoc.

Better framing of account creation

Most of the users entering the booking flow need to create an account. In the old flow, it wasn’t clear enough that you were creating a Zocdoc account. This made it unclear why that info was needed. The new flow made account creation an explicit call-to-action. So, users were more clear what they were doing and why.

Better framing of phone verification

As part of the booking process, users verify their phone number with a 4-digit code. In the old flow, there was no explanation why until after the process was complete. This caused lots of dropoff as people are often hesitant to share personal info—especially if they’re not clear how it will be used. The new flow made it clear the phone number was for the doctor to contact you. So, fewer people hesitated

A great experience for all

Besides a better experience for Zocdoc’s users, I had a really great experience working with the team. There was great collaboration between design, product, and engineering—with great ideas coming from all different people. This is my favorite situation to work in.