Parking at an airport can be a preflight headache. Now, instead of physically searching for a spot before their flight, some travelers book a parking space before they leave for the airport. These travelers certainly don't want to spend as much time navigating a website to book the space as they would spend driving around the airport parking lot. This is why AirportParkingReservations.com, which allows travelers to book a parking spot at more than 85 airports in the United States and Canada through its website, refocused its online customer experience on ease of use.

The company performed a major website overhaul and launched the revamped website in 2010. "We wanted to have a more modern site, with more information, better maps, and clearer directions," says Andy Maclean, AirportParkingReservations.com's online marketing manager.

Despite significant changes aimed at improving customer experience, the relaunch led to increased abandonment rates and decreased conversion rates on some pages. Maclean explains that the changes to the site seemed to backfire. Although the relaunched site presented search results more clearly than the previous version of the site and gave customers more information, "this seemed to put people off and they were [conducting fewer] searchers," Maclean says. Even basic design elements, such as changing a particular color, seemed to distract customers from completing transactions.