Campground website design: site choice stalls

A couple with a small trailer wants a weekend with electric hookup. The campground page shows a map with green, yellow and grey sites and a number on each. They pick the dates first, and the page keeps every site on the map. The green sites include tent-only spots, and nothing on the map says which are which. The camper taps a green site, the summary shows a price with no hookup line, and the vehicle length limit appears only at the end. They leave, not knowing whether the site they wanted was ever free.

• Read the map key aloud. Does it use words a camper would use, such as electric or tent?
• Pick a site that needs hookups. Does the summary repeat the hookup on the same card?
• Enter a vehicle length. Is the limit shown before a site is picked?
• Add a dog. Is the pet rule shown before the dates are confirmed?
• On a phone, tap a site number. Does the chosen site light up on the map?

A camper searches for a campsite with electric, a tent pad or a space for a trailer. The campground's own site types are usually named after the loop or the grade of the pitch, such as Loop B, Premium or Standard, and the visitor cannot guess which one has the hookup they need. Before any dates are chosen, the page should list each site type with one line that says what it includes: tent only, electric, water and sewer, or cabin. Read each site type name aloud and ask whether a camper could match it to a search. If not, add the words a camper would type next to it.

Landing page testing

The map is the one place where a camper picks a number, and nothing on the page explains it unless someone wrote a key. Green, yellow and grey can mean open, limited and closed, but a visitor who arrives cold does not know which is which unless a key sits near the map. On a phone, the map is small, so the numbers are hard to tap, and a tap on a site that is actually taken may do nothing at all. Look at the map in both views and tap three sites in a row. If the chosen site does not highlight, the visitor cannot confirm that the number they picked is the one they will get.

Length limits and pet rules can end a stay that looked fine. A visitor with a long trailer needs to know whether the site takes it, and a visitor with a dog needs to know whether the loop allows one. When those rules appear only in the summary, the visitor has spent several steps picking dates and a site, and now has to start over. The fix is to show each rule on the site choice card, before the dates, and to make the length field refuse a site that cannot take the vehicle. Test with a vehicle at the limit, and with one just over it.

The first run finds the screen where a camper with a trailer and a dog gave up. A fix changes the map key, the site type names or the rule card, and a new season, a renumbered loop or a changed map can bring the same stop back. Run the trailer visitor after each change, then a tent visitor who needs no hookup, so both kinds of site get checked.