The challenge

A start-up airline are looking to create an online experience that is fast, easy and intuitive. They need a new website, focusing specifically on the flight booking process.

Research

Desktop Research

To begin, I carried out a benchmarking exercise. I researched existing airline websites where I explored a user’s journey, from entering search details through to finding and selecting flights. This allowed me to highlight the strengths and weaknesses in their designs well as identify common solutions to the problem which is important when identifying mental models for this process. I also used heuristics principles to evaluate areas that could be improved.

Key insights

• Simple, clear search form: Each website I research contained a simple flight search form within the first fold of their website. These forms all contained a calendar picker element to select flight dates as well as clear call to action buttons in contrasting colours.
• Flight selection variations: There was much variation between websites on how they presented the flight search results, baggage options and ticket costings.
• Multiple screens & screen states: Each website made us of multiple screen and screen states to take the user through the journey of selecting flights and any extras. A key issue I identified is the risk of the user getting lost in the process and not receiving enough feedback to be confident in their selection.

Usability tests

A number of usability tests were carried out on competitors websites. From the usability tests, I was able to identify user goals, context, behaviours, and both the positive interactions and pain points users experienced when tasked with booking flights.

Key insights

• All users were able enter their flight search information with ease
• Users often found search results pages confusing making it difficult to progress their booking
• Some users felt that the booking process would have been easier if they had previous experience of using the website

Defining the problem

To identify common themes from my research I collated my results by using an affinity diagram. On a number of post-it notes, I noted down key findings relevant to the user’s experiences including contextual information, pain points and mental models and then categorised these into common themes as patterns emerged.

Following this, a customer journey map was created highlighting the user’s experience at each touch point. This enabled me to further understand what an effective solution would be.

Key insights

• Price is the most important factor to users. Users would more often than not, select the lowest fare over one that is departing at a more suitable time.
• Users were often confused by the messaging around baggage options and selecting seats
• Users do not want to be ‘bombarded’ with screens for additional services as these were often found to be distracting.

Problem solving through design

User flow

Through the analysis of my research findings, I was able to create a high level flow for a desktop solution. As users had already had a mental model for this process, I focused on the key areas which users incurred most friction, for example, reducing the number of screens for additional services.

Prototype

Following the user flow, I took pen to paper to design a low fidelity prototype. This was a simple and effective way to see my solution ‘in action’. Based on feedback with users, I was able to make design tweaks quickly.

I then created an interactive prototype which illustrates key screen interactions and content details. Due to the foundation of work I had carried out on the user flow and low fidelity prototype, this process was relatively smooth.

Reflections

Reflecting on the challenge that was set, I believe I achieved experience that is fast, easy and intuitive.

The research and analysis I carried out throughout this project really set the foundation for this project. By having the key insights at the forefront of the design process allowed me to create a solution which correlated to mental models, understood users motivations and addressed their pain points.

The next steps for this project would be to create a high-fidelity prototype to incorporate colour and visuals into the design. This would then need to be tested with users to further evaluate its success.