Defining the Problem
The current state of airline desktop sites presents challenges in providing a seamless and intuitive purchase process for users. Despite their significance, issues such as cumbersome navigation, inefficient date and flight selection interfaces, and friction points during checkout hinder user satisfaction and may lead to abandoned bookings. Consequently, there is a need to identify and address these pain points to enhance the overall UX and improve conversion rates.
The Outcome
I created an optimised view of the three “pain point” areas that were identified during the empathise and analyse stages of the process. I used low and high-fidelity wireframes to create and re-iterate these design solutions and have them ready to bring to usability tests to validate.
The Process
Empathise
1
Competitive Research
For this research, I outlined the objectives by identifying competitors based on market share and demographics. I established evaluation criteria also, focusing on UX principles like usability, accessibility, and overall customer satisfaction. In a comprehensive review of four leading European airlines' websites (Aer Lingus, Ryanair, Lufthansa, and easyJet) I focused on key stages of the booking process: landing page, date selection, fare selection, and checkout.
I ran this research by studying the landing page design for intuitive navigation, examining the date selection process for simplicity and accuracy, assessing fare selection mechanisms for transparency and ease of comparison, and finally evaluating the checkout process for efficiency and clarity. Lastly, I created a report on the findings, delineating strengths, weaknesses, and actionable insights to guide strategic decision-making when designing, facilitating enhancements to bolster competitiveness in the airline industry.
2
Note Taking & Usability Tests
After reviewing the usability tests, I made sure to keep organized notes to capture the participant's interactions and feedback effectively.
I began by creating a structured template with sections for key observations, including user actions, verbal feedback, task completion times, and any notable issues encountered. During the test, I watched the participant closely and wrote down everything important, both good and bad. I used a mix of quantitative metrics, such as task completion rates, and qualitative insights, like user comments, to gain a holistic understanding of the user experience.
After the test, I thoroughly reviewed my notes, identifying recurring patterns, pain points, and areas for improvement. This analysis helped me to create affinity diagrams which led to the detailing of consistent themes, pain points and customer journey maps. Both are further detailed in the analyse section.
Analyse
Affinity Mapping in Miro
As this was a personal project, I ran through the research materials and picked out key information from the transcripts. I recruited some temporary team members (housemates, friends, family) to help see if they could identify themes and commonalities from the research. Together we began breaking down the information into themes and user goals became clear in the areas laid out below. Through iterative grouping and regrouping, commonalities emerged, forming the basis of our affinity diagram.
Customer Journey Mapping in FigJam
After creating the affinity diagram, I could understand customers’ motivations, pain points, and touchpoints throughout their journey. This allowed me to map out each stage of the customer journey, from initial awareness to purchasing the flights, incorporating key interactions and emotions experienced by customers along the way.
If this was conducting as part of a project within a company, I would take this further by refining and validating with stakeholders, and the customer journey map would be able to evolve into a valuable tool for identifying opportunities to enhance customer experience and drive business growth. In this project, it allowed me to see that date selection, flight information and confirming the booking were the main pain points of the users.
Ideate
Wireframing in Figma
In the ideation stage of the UX process, I focused on addressing pain points identified through research, particularly in the checkout and booking confirmation stages, looking at simplifying this process to complete the sale as easily as possible.
I also considered issues related to date selection, like showing the “valid” bookable dates, and flight information (such as flight type, i.e., direct, layover) and ensuring the user was shown the selected itinerary throughout.
Adhering to Jakob's law, I retained elements that functioned similarly to other websites in my redesign. Additionally, I prioritized user feedback to guide redesign decisions, aligning with UX principles throughout the process.
Prototype
Figma & InVision
From the wireframes and user flow created during ideation, I built out screens in Figma, taking into consideration the design impacts that would apply when a company’s design system would be applied. Some of the updates that I made to the designs included clear CTA buttons, using real world language, disabling dates where there were no flights, clearly displaying what we discovered to be the important information (i.e., prices, flight options and types, fares) and providing the user with the ability to easily change their mind.
These screens were then made interactive with InVision, allowing me to test what did and didn’t work within the design before getting the prototype ready to test with users for future design iterations.
Reflections
The Outcome
I believe that the design created from this project reflected the issues raised by the users during the research, focusing on date selection, flight information and the checkout process, but as this was a first iteration there are a couple of items in the process that I would like to upgrade.
The first alteration I would make would be to include personas when defining and analysing. As Alan Cooper stated, a persona is not a real individual but rather a collection of users brought together to create a fictional representation. At the time of this project, I thought that having the 3 users from the usability tests as the default personae in my mind would be enough, but I see these should have been fictionalised and broken down based on what I had learned from them. Going forward, I would like to test my designs with users to validate how accurate my research was. This would allow me to gather more information to build personae and user scenarios, further improving my design choices.
During this project, I also focused on broadening my skills across several tools including Figma, FigJam, Miro, and InVision. Upskilling in Figma has shown me how much I really enjoy using the application and have since began prototyping within, which is a bonus on two fronts – minimising friction between software and the demise of InVision in 2024.
I look forward to seeing where future testing takes these designs and how each iteration differs.