Food & Dining Revamp
MAKEMYTRIP
Non-standardised nature of food related information in 'Homestays & Villas' left users uncertain about what to expect in meals. Our goal was to increase clarity and trust by redesigning how meal and cook details are shown across the booking journey.
Overview
MY ROLE
UI Design, IA , Data-led Design, Stakeholder discussions (Product managers, Dev team, Designers)
DELIVERABLES
Figma high fidelity design (Web, mobile), Development audits
DURATION
Feb 2025 - Mar 2025
Go Live - Jul 2025
TEAM
Homestays & Villas UX
CHALLENGE
While MakeMyTrip offered meal-inclusive stays, users often struggled to understand what exactly was included — breakfast type, menu variety, timing, or additional charges.
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Ambiguous labels like “Breakfast included” or “Meals available at property” gave little visibility into actual offerings.
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No differentiation between fixed vs customisable meal options or on-site cook services.
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Users hesitated to add meals due to uncertain value and pricing transparency.
This ambiguity created confusion during property comparison, reduced user trust, and resulted in low meal attach rates and missed upsell opportunities.
OUTCOME
Delivered a new structured Food & Dining experience across the Hotels and Homestays & Villas funnels that brought clarity, transparency, and control to users while selecting meal options.
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​By redesigning how meal details are presented across the journey, the solution directly impacted both user confidence and business performance.
+5.5%
Conversion uplift in the Homestays & Villas funnel
+2.3%
Conversion uplift in Hotels funnel
~9%
Increase in meal attach rate for entire properties
The Transformation ✨
Enhance the clarity and structure of the information across all key touchpoints in the booking journey
To create an intuitive and comparison-friendly experience that helps users clearly differentiate between fixed meals, customisable meals, and cook-based offerings
Improve user trust and decision confidence by highlighting details around menu type, pricing, meal timings etc.
Drive measurable business impact by increasing meal attach rates and improving overall conversion across Hotels and Alternative Accommodation funnels.
Research & Insights
We collaborated with supply and analytics teams to study ~35K properties and discovered:​
Meals Availability
78% properties indicated meal availability; only 41% had detailed info
Unclear expectation
Chains offered wider variety (7-10 hot dishes) but guests typically received 2–3 dishes. Creating a mismatch between expectation and experience.
Price Visibility
~80% of properties had reasonably priced meals, but lack of upfront pricing cues caused hesitation and abandonment during selection
Unstructured Content
Guests wanted visibility into menu type, number of accompaniments, and timing flexibility before booking
This data validated that structured and visual clarity in meal information could directly drive user confidence and conversion.
Current UI
User Personas
Based on the data we had, we assumed the following types of personas:
Business Travellers
Need quick and reliable access to preset meals, and details would help close it as the go to option
Families & Groups
Might prefer breakfast options due to ease of access, but will probably not opt for other options in a leisure city
Religious Travellers
Specifically seek pure vegetarian and Jain food offerings, and would love to know if the host offers that
Foreign Travellers
Look for cuisine details to ensure dietary compatibility and may prefer cooks for that reason. Also, may want to explore authentic culture and want details of the local cuisine availability
3-Fold Challenge
Once the gaps in Food & Dining information were identified, the real challenge was translating fragmented supply data into a scalable, user-friendly experience across multiple booking stages. This resulted in three core design challenges:
Designing for inconsistent supply-side data
Meal information came from thousands of properties with highly inconsistent inputs like full menus, only a meal label, partial or outdated pricing.
The design had to be scalable that worked with both rich and minimal data while still delivering a consistent user experience that did not expose data gaps to users
How might we design a flexible system that works even when property data is incomplete or inconsistent?
Balancing simplicity with detailed transparency
Earlier, meal information was presented as generic text labels such as “Breakfast Included” or “Meals Available at Property.” While this kept the UI minimal, it failed to provide critical decision-making details.​
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The design needed to strike a balance between communicating details like Menu type, fixed vs choice options, additional pricing and simple UI to ease decision making
How might we layer detailed meal information without overwhelming users or cluttering the interface
Maintaining funnel continuity across discovery to checkout
Users encountered Food & Dining information at various touchpoints like property detail page, room selection and checkout. These were disconnected, leading to confusion and required back-and-forth verification by users.
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The goal was to maintain consistency and avoid creating new drop-off points while providing meal clarity
How might we carry a consistent Food & Dining narrative across the entire booking journey without breaking momentum?
Competitive Study
Food info is hidden deep in long descriptions, resulting in users skipping it entirely
Generic labels like “Breakfast included” without specifics fails to influence decisions
Meal configuration shown outside the booking context breaks flow and increases drop-offs
Showing meal value directly with room price drives faster, more confident decisions
The Design Vision
Explorability without effort
Trust through transparency
Transform meal discovery into confidence-led decisions through clear and funnel-native design
Structure for fast scanning
Built into the booking flow
Design Iterations
Evolved from text-heavy descriptions to structured, scannable meal cards​
Iteratively refined pricing visibility, meals hierarchy, and cook availability cues
Final design
A unified, detailed experience for everything meals related!
Scaled to Desktop too!
Time for the Wins!
+5.5%
Conversion Uplift in Homestays & Villas
Saw measurable lift post structured meal rollout
+2.3%
Conversion Uplift in Hotels funnel
Improved with clearer meal inclusions and pricing cues
+8.8%
Meal Attach Rate
Entire property meal adoption increased from 56% to 61%
+18.5%
Meal Detail Interaction
More users actively explored meal information during room selection
Decision-Ready Meal Clarity
Users could now evaluate meal value without second-guessing during room comparison
Stronger Trust at High-Intent Stages
Transparent Food & Dining details reduced hesitation at selection and checkout stages
Thank you for reading it till the end!
