Background
This project was completed as part of my UX design diploma from the UX Design Institute. All aspects of the work were carried out independently by me.
The Problem
Flight booking websites can be extremely difficult to navigate and take the joy out of booking your next adventure. Long and complicated booking processes due to the number of steps in the process of booking a flight can lead to users abandoning their carts mid booking and brings a huge unnecessary loss for travel companies along with frustrated customers.
Unfortunately these sites often have complex navigation and unclear labelling and with too much information on the homepages can confuse users from the first step. Another issue I felt was important to address was the overwhelming amount of information on travel sites which is not needed for each customer and can put you off using sites.
The Process
Research
Different methods of research were used to pin point the exact issues of flight booking sites and to collect enough qualitative and quantitate data to start the process of analysis and design of a better product that functions for the users.
Competitor Benchmarking
To understand industry standards and which elements of existing travel websites are successful or not working, I conducted research on industry leaders and how they structure the process of booking a flight. I am looking at layout, navigation, how many steps in the process, CTA's and all successful/unsuccessful elements on the site.
Usability Tests
I conducted 5 usability tests for the booking process on different existing airline sites which was a valuable tool to understand the pain points and mental models users have while booking a flight. This highlighted many issues and gave valuable insight to different users experiences.
Analysis
To make sense of the different methods of research gathered I worked on analysis techniques to order this information and draw conclusions from the findings.
Grouping - Affinity diagram
The first step in analysis was to make an Affinity diagram to process every bit of information gathered from all the different methods. This system broke down the key points of every interaction and mental model or opinion to separate post-it notes to understand and coordinate the data into understandable sections. A group of three of us talked through each grouping and discovered that areas like overall navigation and visibility were identified as problematic areas whereas, others such as the calendar search field and adding passengers had a much more positive result from the research. The full diagram can be viewed here
Customer Journey Map
As a step further in the analysis process, I organised the research findings into chronological steps throughout the booking process to further understand where the issues occur and which stages were successfully working. Overwhelmingly the searching input for flights was a positive experience but browsing for flights flagged up the biggest challenges. The full document can be viewed here
Design
The analysis has provided great insights on how to improve the flight book process and which elements I need to focus my design on. The first stages is to draw out each screen state and develop the design through sketching so ideas are kept loose.
I made a medium-fidelity prototype of the site to further understand the design intricacies and to be able to test with users. The process allows you to book a return flight for two from Amsterdam to Berlin on the first flight of the day for both. I conducted a series of user tests to further develop the design and learn for users different experiences of booking a flight on my prototype.
Reflections
The Process
I found the research process gave me a lot to work with when there are so many different airline booking sites and so many good and bad examples of how to structure and design this complex process. Analysing all the data was where everything came together and I was pleased to see some patterns arise where I knew to focus on in the design process. The design itself was greatly helped by hand-sketching out multiple variations of ideas before using Figma to design the prototype.
The Results
I am satisfied that my product tested well in the final stages and am delighted to have created a product that functions and is easy to use. In reflection, the final usability tests I conducted at the design stage were the most valuable in telling me what was working well and what improvements I could make.
In the future, I hope to expand on the research stages to gather an even bigger set of data to work with and I think in hindsight for future projects the affinity diagram would be improved when done with stakeholders or other designers on the team.