UX Researcher, UX Designer
UX Design Institute
2022
Introduction
Client is a start-up airline, which wanted to create an online experience that is fast, simple and intuitive, based on a deep understanding of their target users. Therefore, the main criterion was to design so that the user from the first visit to the site to understand how to book a ticket for the flight.
UX Design Process
In order for the user to be satisfied with the product that is to get a positive experience it was necessary to complete all steps of the design process. The aim of the UX design process was not to miss the opportunity to improve the product to meet their needs.
- Research
During the user research process, I immersed myself in a comprehensive study of the needs, wants, goals, motivations and behaviours of our users with absolute confidence. This valuable information gave me a solid understanding of how users navigate the website.
- Design
During the design phase, I developed possible solutions that were most likely to meet user needs. After the initial ideas were outlined, I reviewed the information architecture of the new features.
- Prototype
The purpose of prototyping was to test the original prototype. This allowed me to make sure that the solution was convenient and accessible. It also ensured that users would be able to communicate with it as I had originally intended.
- Validate
This phase was to test the project. I had to make sure that the design effectively solved the user problem. This step required testing UX on real users. This gave me the opportunity to identify design problems and fix them before the design is developed by the tester, which will ultimately save time, money and disgruntled users.
Online Survey
The market research was conducted in January 2022. During this period, users did not use the services of airlines often due to the coronavirus. Despite that situation, 50% of users booked flights.
One of the main questions was what actions users performed when they opened the airline's website. Based on the data obtained from the online survey, I concluded that users most often check in for a flight or looked at the price of air tickets.
Therefore, it was very important to consider the whole way of searching for air tickets so that it would be easy for the user to do this.
To develop a website design prototype, it was important for me to understand which device users used when most often they perform various actions on the website. The results of the online survey showed that most of the users used a computer or laptop, so first of all it is necessary to develop a desktop version for users.
As a result of the analysis of the online survey, it was found that users pay attention most to the price of tickets, so it is important to always highlight the cost. The user should always see the cost of their booking, the user will not have any additional questions.
One of the criteria for users was also the flight time. Therefore, in sorting, it was important that the user could easily find it. All 4 criteria indicated in the diagram were important for the user, so I included them in filtering and sorting.
User Interviews
In addition to an online survey, in order to identify the user's pains, desires and actions, I conducted an interview. The interview was 1:1 with the user in which they were given the task to go from searching for air tickets to the final step of booking air tickets without entering contact information.
Goal & Process
The goal was to determine what the user needs, wants, feels and what pains they experience with each interaction with the airline website.
To achieve my goal, I used:
🔘 User Personas
🔘 Customer Journey Map (CJM)
User personas
In order to better understand the user, I created a user persona. This had to be done in order to fully understand the user's goals, his dissatisfaction, pain, what he wants to achieve when opening an aviation website.
Interview 1
On the site of a competitor's airline, the user didn't like the indistinguishable color of the buttons, so after developing a high-precision prototype, you should choose a color scheme there the buttons get attention that would attract the user. When choosing a tariff for a user, it is important to understand all the points of this tariff; therefore, it is necessary to develop a tariff interface that is clear and simple for any user.
All names of buttons and fields should be intuitive for the user so that the user does not feel uncomfortable.
Interview 2
The calendar when choosing dates should be simple and understandable to the user. During the interview, I concluded that the simpler the calendar, the more user-friendly it is. For example, removing all unnecessary buttons.
On a competitor's site for finding flights, every time a user visited the site, the system asked them to select the interface language, which was very annoying for the user. Therefore, the best solution for the user would be to save the current language and not ask the user about it every time.
When choosing additional services, the user needs the cost for these services.
Customer journey map (CJM)
Based on the interviews, I compiled a customer journey map in which I described all the user's steps on the airline website.I also described all the pains of the user and user positive reactions in order to understand them better and solve their problems associated with interacting with the website.
Affinity Diagram
After conducting the interview and receiving the data from the online survey, I needed to structure all the data. So I used an affinity diagram to identify and structure this data and identify common themes across the studies.In it, I used everything from the opinions and needs of users to conclusions, design problemsHaving grouped the information, I had a clear understanding of what should be on the site and the essential information that must be present.
- Subgroups: 5
- Data fragments: 10
- States: 35
- Groups: 157
Sketching
It is very convenient to develop a sketch as the labour costs are minimal. Once I had developed the sketch, I immediately had an idea of what the website would look like and what sections would be on the site. Sketching out ideas helped me to organise my thoughts. It really saved time.
High-fidelity prototyping
A medium and high-fidelity prototype was needed for user interaction. Such prototypes are ideal for usability studies and presentation to stakeholders.
The highly fidelity prototype gave users an accurate idea of how the site's web pages would look and function in the future.
It was important for me to develop a high-fidelity prototype so that the user doesn't have any questions when interacting with the website and navigating to subsequent web pages.
The high-quality prototype was useful because it showed web page interactions and scrolling. I often tested interactions between web pages using this prototype.
Flight search process based on UX
Device selection
Since my research showed that users are more likely to order tickets from a computer or laptop, I designed the website for the desktop.
When opening an aviation website, the user first of all searches for the flights that they need, so it was important to make a convenient search for air tickets. Based on my findings, I placed a flight search form on the main page.
Departure city search
Most of there time, users book tickets for a flight from the city they are in, so to save their time in the upper left corner, I placed the "airport nearby" button, which will show the nearest airports.
By adding such a button, the user will have a positive experience and it increases the chance that the user will buy tickets on the AirGermany website.
Flight date selection
Before developing the design, I looked at many of the competitor websites. Some sites had bugs. The user must be given the right to select or enter dates using the keyboard or use the built-in calendar.
For a quick decision in choosing dates, I added the initial cost of the flight to these dates, as this is the main criterion for most users.
Choice of number of travellers
To avoid misunderstanding between users and the airline, I designed a form to select the number of travelers. It was important to add the age of users, since when buying a ticket for a child, this need to be taken into account.
Ticket selection
In order for the user to understand what page they are currently on and what forms needs to be filled out, I added "Steps".
During the online survey, I found that the number of transfers, cost, departure/arrival time and flight time are the main parameters when searching for an air ticket. In this regard, I added filtering at the very beginning of the page for a more efficient and positive experience for the user.
In addition to not making the user think I added a purple icon on the date bar for cheaper flights. This feature will keep the user and it will increase the chance that the user buy the ticket from the current airline
Airfare selection
Users don't like to read. The main goal for them is to find the necessary information in a short time, so I briefly described the advantages of each tariff in the tariff card. The user can compare them and choose the most suitable one
Selected ticket
After the user clicks on one of the fares, the ticket becomes selected. This ticket can be easily changed by clicking on the "Edit" button
Flight details
By clicking on the "flight details" button of each ticket, the user can view all the information of interest about the flight.
In order for the user to quickly navigate this information, I didn't design this as a table, as this would overload the user too much. Therefore, I added only important information to the page that the user really needs.
All tickets selected
Once the user has selected tickets matching the search, the website displays all the selected tickets including information on the number of passengers. This information is necessary to prevent the user from selecting the wrong number of passengers
Passanger information
Filling in passenger data is the most disliked page for users because it takes a lot of time to enter this data.
Therefore, for registered users, I developed the design of a form for entering their personal details. When logged in, their user data will be selected automatically, but can be changed if required.
When the fields are filled, depending on their value, the web page will show the user that there are no errors.
Selecting the amount of luggage
Not all users take the amount of baggage allowed by the tariff, so I designed the form for additional baggage.
Of course, users don't remember all the terms of the tariff, so I indicated on this page what is included. If the user adds baggage that isn't included in the fare, then an additional cost is visible when adding.
Preview of payment amount
In an online survey of users, one of the comments was that the user does not understand how the cost of the flight is calculated. Therefore, on this web page, the user can find out all the detailed information about the cost.
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Takeaways
This project was a great learning experience. I have never done so much research for a project before. At first I thought that I had too much information to analyze and it was superfluous, but each study helped in solving the problem. Conducting the study required a lot of hard work, however it produced a reward for me - the data and inside to inspire and guide my design. For each project, it is necessary to have data that confirms that we are solving the correct problems.
After collecting and analyzing the data, the development of the prototype and design of the airline site simplified my decision-making and everything was done so that nothing distracts the user from using the site and the process of ordering air tickets was fully completed.
Most of all, I was struck by the fact that I realized how important research is in developing a successful website design and discovering which problems the user experiences when using the website. I am very passionate about helping companies to understand the importance of decisions being made and how these decisions affect the user.
