Enhancing Guest Experience with AI-Powered Checkout

Experiment

Our goal was to test Hypothesis 3, to evaluate whether creating an interactive checkout experience using an AI-powered app builder could significantly streamline the guest experience for selecting and paying for add-ons. We aimed to determine if a fully interactive, validated, and intuitive payment interface would enhance customer satisfaction and increase conversion rates.

Key Takeaways

• • The use of AI-powered app builders like Replit significantly accelerates rapid prototyping, enabling quick iteration and effective enhancements to both front-end and back-end development without extensive manual coding.
• • Enhancements such as emotionally engaging headlines and secure transaction messaging not only improve usability but also foster trust, which is essential in driving conversions and enhancing customer satisfaction.
• • Effective form validation and UX improvements, achieved through AI-generated code, minimize development time while ensuring a seamless checkout experience, underscoring the potential for AI to streamline complex processes.
• • Challenges with UI responsiveness and initial error-handling highlight the importance of continuous testing and refinement in creating an optimal user experience, emphasizing that early iterations may require adjustments to meet user expectations.
• • The successful validation of the hypothesis indicates a clear pathway for scalability, suggesting that this interactive checkout solution could be appealing to other property owners looking to improve their customer experience and conversion rates.

App Builders Used

We selected Replit.com and utilized Flask as our backend framework.

Prompting Strategies

Our strategy involved providing clear and iterative prompts, progressively refining the UX/UI and form validation logic: Initial Prompt: "I want you to recreate the checkout page I will send you as a screenshot. However, just include the 'card' payment method. Additionally, assume that the URL should include two parameters that you should handle in your code: client_reference_id Price Validate the input fields - card fields should not allow letters, and the expiration date should only allow month/year input. Disable the 'pay' button unless all necessary information is complete. Use Flask." Iterative Improvement Prompt: "Make the following changes: The height of the total page is too large. Adjust it so it automatically fits without scrolling. By default, hide all validation errors. Show errors (e.g., 'Please enter a valid email address') only if the user attempts submission with incomplete or incorrect input." Sample debugging: How do I access a dictionary in javascript if [] is not working and . is not possible as the name is variable. bracket notation is giving undefined although the value is there. the following consoles: console.log(translations); console.log(translations.zipcode); console.log(translations['zipcode']); give these outputs: {'payment_details': 'Payment Details', 'email': 'Email', 'card': 'Card', 'card_information': 'Card information', 'name_on_card': 'Name on card', 'country_region': 'Country or region', 'pay': 'Pay', 'full_name_placeholder': 'Full name on card', 'zipcode': 'ZIP code', 'postalcode': 'Postal code', 'postcode': 'Postcode', 'payment_success': 'Payment Successful', 'thank_you': 'Thank You!', 'payment_success_message': 'Your payment has been processed successfully.', 'return_home': 'Return to Home', 'payment_failed': 'Payment Failed', 'payment_failed_message': 'We were unable to process your payment. Please try again.', 'try_again': 'Try Again', 'add_ons_title': 'Optional Add-ons'} undefined undefined This iterative strategy allowed us to refine the prototype, responding directly to usability feedback and ensuring smooth user interaction.

Project Outcomes

What Worked Well

Rapid development and iteration of front-end and back-end code using simple prompts. Effective automatic input validation logic and UX enhancements achieved through AI-generated code, significantly reducing manual coding efforts.

What Didn't Work Well

The initial UI responsiveness required multiple iterations, particularly around optimizing the screen layout. The default error-handling behavior was overly sensitive at first, requiring explicit prompting to adjust the interaction logic.

Surprising Findings

We were surprised at how effectively we could achieve detailed form validation and user experience improvements through concise prompting. The AI was adept at generating robust, working code with minimal manual debugging, allowing us to rapidly prototype a functional payment interface.

Moving Forward

This interactive prototype substantially validated our hypothesis around UX optimization, showing that an intuitive, validated, and responsive checkout experience can be efficiently developed using generative AI tools like Replit. This significantly reduces barriers to customer purchase completion, indicating a clear path for scaling and potentially offering our solution to other property owners. The successful demonstration also highlighted practical limitations, which will inform further development, particularly in user experience refinement and backend integration.

Full Project Site

Accompanying Landing Page

Website Enhancements

Visuals: Include an overlay with a headline like “Make Your Stay Unforgettable.” Add Favicon for each add-on Messaging Update your main headline to something emotionally engaging, like: “Elevate Your Costa Rican Getaway with Thoughtful Add-Ons.” Underneath, a subhead to reinforce value: “Personalized surprises to make your romantic vacation truly memorable.” Conversion and Trust Signals: Secure Transaction Messaging: Include a badge stating “Secure Payments powered by Stripe” prominently near the checkout button.

Hypothesis Testing and AI Possibilities

The enhancements directly test Hypothesis 2 of our MVP project - validating whether improved UX, compelling copy, and social proof significantly increase guest conversion rates for add-ons. By using generative AI (ChatGPT) to craft persuasive copywriting, optimize SEO, and suggest effective layout improvements, we have been able to rapidly iterate on content and design enhancements that meaningfully impact customer behavior without extensive development resources. Also, we used ChGPT as a potential client, not only a builder, we have asked the AI to include suggestions that will enhance our current landing page offering. There it helped us increase the trust signals. This approach illustrates the powerful role generative AI can play in quickly elevating user experiences, validating business hypotheses, and enabling low-cost experimentation.

Project Outcomes

What Worked Well

Worked well: Copywriting improvements significantly clarified our value proposition and increased engagement. The visual and UX enhancements notably improved the professional appearance of the website, creating a more trustworthy and inviting experience. We feel that the AI can really be good to asses self thoughts (soft nuances) in the target consumer

What Didn't Work Well

Did not work well: Adding urgency and scarcity messaging took some experimentation to ensure it felt authentic and not overly aggressive. A lot of the outputs did not feel human, or effective for us to use on humans. A lot were generic and simplistic. Also, a few suggestions were not as practical, like creating a new infrastructure for the photos file size.

Surprising Findings

We were surprised by the dramatic improvement in visual appeal and usability achieved through relatively minor AI-generated suggestions. The iterations with AI are so fast, you can build and test you MVP very quickly and get into a point you can start sharing it with your potential clients. We were also surprised how much we can use AI to enhance our technical abilities. Copy writing and testing conversions potential with AI was easy and effective, the main use and enhancements in level 2 were to leverage generative AI for copywriting, producing content at quality comparable to professional copywriters with significantly less time invested.

Full ChatGPT Generated Landing Page