Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash
Trainee UX Designer • User Research & Analysis • UX/UI Designer
PROJECT BRIEF & MY ROLE
As a Trainee UX Designer I was tasked by The UX Design Institute to look at what other
Airlines are doing, to learn from their mistakes and take inspiration from the things they do
well. This information would be the foundation of my Research, and once synthesised it
helped improve the Flight Booking Application I created.
As a Trainee it was my role to perform all tasks and roles at each step of the Process, so that
I would gain experience and a clear understanding of what a UX Designer has to do for their
work and Projects.
For Airlines such as EasyJet, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, having a simple and efficient
way for customers to find and buy flights online, so that they can get away on holiday, is the
foundation of their Business Success. With so many bad examples out there, this is clearly a
space in need of a UX Intervention and a way to increase sales for Airlines.
In this project I helped to reduce user friction by 20% by reducing the amount of unnecessary
steps in the overall process, using UI and calls to actions in a way that inspired progression
through the Flight Booking Application and making it as seamless as possible, maximising
the selling potential.
I began with a Heuristic Review, as well as Competitor Benchmarking, to see how my problem
was already being solved by other Airlines. I looked at the similarities and conventions and
discovered they all had a Flight Booking Form. This was something that I wanted to include
in my own design so people would already know what to expect when they used my Website.
I created an Online Survey, using SurveyMonkey, to gather qualitative, attitudinal data. Because
the target audience was a ‘Person wanting to arrange a Flight’ it meant that I could send the
Survey out to Family and Friends and other Personal Contacts to understand and gather their
experiences of booking a flight.
I also recruited participants to undertake in Depth Interviews, allowing me to collect attitudinal
and qualitative data. I used the same participants to conduct Usability Tests, gathering
observational and qualitative data, which the Participants all gave their consent. The
results were added to the Depth Interviews and Usability Tests conducted by the UX Design
Institute.
I began by using Triangulation to look at the collected data, to see where the research findings
were pointing before gaining greater clarity by further organising the research in an Affinity
Diagram. The individual points were written on Post-It notes and then collected together
into logical groups.
A Customer Journey Map was used to establish the Goals, Behaviours, Context, Pain Points
and Users Mental Models as they progressed through the linear Flight Booking Sequence.
An analysis of the data revealed:
• The Flight Booking Form should be present on the Homepage as soon as a user arrives, with
secondary goals easily available.
• Removal of adverts and unnecessary steps, for example, having to input country of origin
• Clear, layperson language should be used throughout, with clean, paired back, Design and
clear visual prompts.
• Visibility of the system status should be on every page.
• Flight information should include: Flight Duration; Time of Flight; Price (PP + Overall); No. of
Stops/Direct Flight; Stopover Duration; and No. of Passengers in the Flight Details.
• Search Results should be on one page.
• Only show Search Results for Class chosen.
• The whole Search Result Box should be selectable.
• There should be a clear distinction between Outbound and Return Flights.
• Should include Date and Prices for days either side of chosen date for flexi-fliers.
Then the Project moved into the Design and Build Phase, which I did using Sketch and
InVision, and following the Design Principles to ensure the solution I created was of a high
standard. For this project I used the paradox of specificity deciding to only focus on creating
a seamless Flight Booking Process. I created a Medium-Fidelity Prototype to test the flow of
my solution, the screen layout and hierarchy, the basic interactions, to check that navigation was
clear and that the wording and copy was right.
A Wireframe was also done highlighting all details that could not be explored in the Mid-fidelity
Prototype.
At this stage a Usability Test was conducted with the time taken to get through the process
being recorded on Screenflow - the Software tool used for the Usability Testing throughout this
project.
Photo by Jessy Smith on Unsplash