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Here's my scenario:

  • Customer books a hotel room for 4 guests for a week.

  • He/she can then add meals to their booking of which there are 4 mutually exclusive options (Let's say Full English Breakfast, Vegetarian Breakfast, Continental Breakfast and No Breakfast)

  • Imagine 2 guests would like the Full English and the other 2 guests would like Continental. (Note: each guest will receive their chosen option for every day of their stay)

  • Consider guests changing their mind (e.g. switching to the veggie option)

Does anyone have any ideas how to display this on an app?

I have a few ideas below but V1 & V2 might be tricky in terms of switching from one option to another and reflecting what's changed.

V3 solves the above problem but might be challenging visually and could be confusing as the number could suggest that they are buying one individual breakfast.

V4 is divided by guest with the default being "no meals" for all adults but could be long winded to individually edit per guest.

Ideas

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  • could you describe the options?
    – MaximOrlovsky
    Mar 14, 2018 at 17:17
  • Sure, see changes above :)
    – Jade
    Mar 15, 2018 at 9:33
  • Can you show us what ideas you have so far?
    – RobbyReindeer
    Mar 15, 2018 at 9:38
  • 1
    @RobE Edited to include ideas so far
    – Jade
    Mar 15, 2018 at 10:21

3 Answers 3

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Sometimes there are just multiple valid answers, and the best way to decide is to actually experience it. I'm answering with another, different solution.

Chose between the choices that seems the most appropriate and try. If you have the resources, add thorough analytics and have beta testers use it for a couple of weeks. If you don't have the resources, implement analytics and skip beta. The users will show you if they don't like it. Ask for reviews, maybe add a 'tell us what you think' form, and see how they feel about the process.

If you see the majority takes 1 meal and finds the process fast, you're done. If not, you'll have to rethink your process but this time you'll know where the culprit is. Right now you're just guessing between valid options.

And maybe your choice will be good now, but not as good in 6 months. So you'll need analytics anyway.

I think it's okay to try, and ask for feedback. Just don't let the users decide for you. Most of the time they don't know sh*t about making an app. If one says "this button should be a list because it took me 4 taps to select what I wanted", understand "process is slow". Maybe the button will become a lit, maybe it will become a new page, maybe the whole process will change. Understand their problem, but find the solution yourself, they don't have all the pieces of the puzzle.

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I think number 1 is clear enough if you don't but the add button inside the accordion. enter image description here

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  • 1
    Thanks for your answer :) I think the "2" in your example might suggest that you are getting two £8 Full English breakfasts. What I also need to show is that 2 guests will get that meal option for all 7 days of their stay (costing £112 in this example). I probably didn't make that part very clear...
    – Jade
    Mar 15, 2018 at 13:20
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    Then maybe change the price of 8$, write 8$/day, per guest. With a small label displaying the total cost somewhere
    – Gil Sand
    Mar 15, 2018 at 13:24
  • @GilSand Good suggestion. To make it even clearer, I'd suggest adding a label or somehow otherwise indicating that the "2" represents "the number of guests who will be receiving this meal all week" versus "the number of meals we will be needing of this type".
    – maxathousand
    Mar 15, 2018 at 21:52
  • @Jade I think you should have some kind of running total that shows what the updates are doing to the price immediately. This way, the user will be able to more clearly see what the numbers represent, and how their elections affect their total cost. Even as I'm reading through the question and answers, I still get confused as to whether the user is selecting A) "total number of meals", B) "number of meals per day", or C) "number of adults receiving these meals per day" (which I guess is the same as B, but just "feels" different)...
    – maxathousand
    Mar 15, 2018 at 21:57
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I think your base should be the V4 option. As a user I would expect everything to be split between guests. When I order a plane ticket, the scope always evolves around guests. It shouldn't suddenly switch to a meal-oriented menu.

So it's worth repeating the UI like you did. Every guest understands that they chose for themselves. There you can display all kinds of informations, and maybe add the possibility to not have those meals everyday (maybe I wanna have breakfast outside on two different days).

The other versions seem to always bring some kind of confusion, where the V4 only 'problem' is being a longer form. Which is completely irrelevant and a non-issue

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  • The more I look at it the more I don't understand what you don't like about V4. It looks like you answered all your needs there. Could you tell me what you don't like about it?
    – Gil Sand
    Mar 15, 2018 at 13:32
  • Well you first have to decide who in your party is adult 1, adult 2 etc. then choose a meal option, then tap to edit the next adult to add their choice and so forth. Imagine everyone wanted a Full English - it feels a bit long winded for certain scenarios which could be more common
    – Jade
    Mar 15, 2018 at 14:02
  • Maybe not. The group pays for X meals, does it really matter who is adult 1 and 3? If it is, it's not annoying to select 4 bullet points. The choices are simple, is just scrolling and tapping a couple of times. Even if everyone ends up taking the same meal. It would be an issue if you order for 30 persons, but without analytics/knowledge I'm assuming that is uncommon
    – Gil Sand
    Mar 16, 2018 at 0:07

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