Booking.com | Rolling Partnership: Decision validation

The Opportunity

Booking.com needs to make faster, more confident product decisions while reducing risk across a growing portfolio of strategic initiatives.

Working across teams including Loyalty, Connected Trip, Intent, Trip Management and Order Tracks, the Marketplace team is building a more agile, user-centred approach to product development. Rather than relying on occasional research projects, the goal is to create a repeatable system that gives teams direct access to user feedback throughout the product lifecycle.

To support this ambition, intO delivers an eight-month rolling research programme across the USA and UK, helping product teams validate ideas earlier, move faster, and make decisions with greater confidence.

Our Approach

intO operates as an extension of the Booking.com team, delivering a continuous programme of qualitative research designed to support evolving product priorities.

Each research cycle follows a rapid 21-day framework, enabling teams to move from brief to insight quickly while maintaining rigour and consistency. Depending on the needs of each squad, studies may include moderated user testing, concept evaluation, prototype testing, competitive walkthroughs and in-depth qualitative interviews.

The programme combines dedicated researchers in the USA and UK with senior strategic oversight, ensuring continuity across teams and research cycles. Findings are synthesised through collaborative distillation workshops and translated into clear, actionable recommendations that can be applied immediately.

Business Impact

By creating direct and ongoing access to users, the programme helps teams validate concepts earlier, improves research team efficiency, identifies potential risk across strategic initiatives before launch, reduces uncertainty around product decisions, and creates a culture where the user is central to all product decisions. 

The result is faster, more confident decision-making, with product choices grounded in real user needs and behaviours. Beyond individual studies, the programme helps establish a more agile and user-centred way of working, strengthening alignment between product strategy, research and customer expectations.