Campground website booking: wrong-size sites

Campgrounds sell space with limits: a maximum vehicle length, a hookup for power or water, a pet rule, a limit on people per pitch. A booking should check those limits before it offers a site, and many do not. A camper enters a vehicle length in one unit while the site list uses another, so a pitch listed for a shorter trailer looks fine until the tow vehicle is added. Hookups appear as short codes the visitor does not know. The camper selects a pitch, then learns at the summary that it has no power, and the trip is off.

• Does the vehicle length field use the unit a camper knows, and do the pitches use the same unit?
• Is each pitch's hookup, such as power or water, written in words beside the pitch?
• Can the site map be zoomed on a phone without losing the pitch numbers?
• Does a dog or pet rule appear on the pitch page before the camper picks dates?
• Does a minimum stay appear before the camper chooses the dates?

A campground often describes a pitch with a code that made sense to the staff who set it up: a letter, a full hookup, a non-electric pitch. A camper reads those words as a promise and a limit at once. The wrong version is a list of pitch names with the hookup in a tooltip. The right version writes the hookup in words beside the pitch, says whether the pitch is for tents only, and names the largest vehicle it takes. Test it by asking a simulated visitor to find a pitch with power on a phone, and read which words it used to decide.

Most campground maps are a single picture of the grounds, with the pitch numbers printed in small type over shaded shapes. On a laptop that works. On a phone the numbers overlap, pinching can zoom the whole page instead of the map, and a tap on one row can select the pitch beside it. A camper who taps a pitch and sees different dates or a different price in the summary cannot tell which choice was right. Open the map on your own phone, tap a pitch in the middle of a row, and check that the number at the top of the screen is the one you tapped.

Pet rules and length limits often sit in the terms, not on the pitch. A camper with a dog finds out after picking the pitch that dogs need a separate fee, or that a breed rule applies, or that dogs are not allowed in the tent area. The same happens with vehicle length, which a camper may check only in a line of small text under the summary. Run a visitor who says it has a dog and a small trailer, and read the first screen where either rule appears. If it appears after the dates and the pitch, the rule arrives too late to change the choice.

The first run finds the control where the camper gives up. The fix labels the pitches, makes the map zoom and puts the length limit beside the vehicle field. Run the same camper again with a tent and a dog, and check that a pitch appears that fits. Repeat it after a seasonal rate starts, a loop closes for work or the booking tool changes, since each one can remove the pitches that fit from the list.