Fly UX

UX Design Diploma

I completed a course with the UX design institute in 2021. For an assignment, I redesigned a flight booking system using a user-centred design approach.

The Assignment

To research flight booking websites and use my findings to design a user-friendly flight booking web application.

The Research

Competitive Benchmarking

I initiated the project by seeking inspiration from top-tier competitor websites and apps. I researched four prominent flight-booking websites and four mobile flight-booking apps, meticulously capturing screenshots at various user journey stages. My objective was to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each platform, as well as identify standard features that users would typically anticipate.

To effectively analyze the collected data, I utilized shaped markers to distinguish and emphasize the pain points, positive aspects, and standard features within the captured screenshots. This visual categorization allowed me to understand the user experience provided by the competitor platforms. It served as a foundation for further insights and decision-making in the project.

Duration

This was the project for the UX design institute, the duration was over a six month period. I managed to complete the course in 3 months and achieved a 98% pass rate in the exam.

Tools

I used Adobe XD to prototype and Indesign to create the documentation.

User Survey

As part of the UX research process, I leveraged Survey Monkey to design an online survey that would provide quantitative-attitudinal insights, enabling me to grasp the contextual factors surrounding user behaviour. To capture a well-rounded perspective, I employed a combination of open-ended, closed-ended, and multiple-choice questions within the survey. I ensured that the survey was concise, allowing participants to complete it within approximately 2-3 minutes.

Upon analyzing the survey results, a significant finding showed that 78% of the volunteers preferred using desktop devices when searching for and booking flights. This revelation was surprising, as I initially anticipated a higher level of mobile app usage. Nonetheless, this valuable information shed light on the prevalent user behaviour and provided essential insights that would shape the subsequent stages of the UX design process.

In-Depth Interviews

The subsequent phase involved crafting a comprehensive script for conducting in-depth interviews. The primary objective was to delve deep into the user context and extract valuable insights regarding their preferences regarding flight-booking websites. The interviews aimed to uncover the reasons behind users’ website preferences, including the factors influencing their choices.

In addition to website preferences, the scope of the interviews encompassed understanding the typical frequency of user visits to a website before making a purchase. This knowledge would shed light on users’ decision-making process and provide insights into their behaviour patterns. Furthermore the interviews aimed to explore how users share information when making flight choices as a group, this aspect was crucial in understanding the collaborative dynamics and the factors that influence users when they make decisions collectively.

By conducting these in-depth interviews, I gathed rich qualitative data, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of user perspectives and behaviours. These insights serve as a solid foundation for optimizing the user experience in the subsequent stages of the project.

User interviews

I used usability testing to gain some deeper qualitative insights into the usability of existing flight-booking apps. It was a challenge at first due to lockdown, and zoom became a helpful tool. The first step was defining my objectives and deciding what I wanted to achieve from the usability tests. I created a recruitment screener, a consent form and a script for mobile and desktop usability testing sessions. I paid Careful attention during the writing of the questions to ensure that I didn’t ask leading questions or closed questions that would be unfruitful. After doing this preliminary work, I conducted three desktop usability tests on the Kayak and British airways websites.

The Analysis

Affinity Mapping

I embarked on the task of analyzing the data to extract meaningful insights. I carefully examined the usability test recordings, making detailed observations and jotting down important points. I captured each comment on separate Post-it notes. Additionally, I thoroughly reviewed the in-depth interviews, competitor benchmarking documents, and survey results, adding more relevant notes to my collection of Post-its.

I strategically placed the notes on my home office wall to organize them. I classified and grouped the notes into different categories to make sense of the information and identify patterns, creating an affinity diagram. Through this process, distinct category types emerged, providing a clear structure for further analysis.

Customer Journey Mapping

I took the information from the affinity diagram and organised it into a step by step view of the journey to show how the users felt at each stage. I also noted their goals, behaviour, context and pain points at each step.

Key Findings

The key insights I gained by using these research methods were:

The departure field should auto-select the nearest airport.
If there are no flights for selected dates, sites should suggest alternative dates and indicate no flights available for chosen dates.
Clarity on flight prices should be visible at all times.
Buttons should be marked, indicating their purpose.
Only available options show. If the options are not available, they shouldn’t show them.

Focusing on the pain points would create less friction with the customer and result in more click through’s on the site.

The Design

Desktop Flowchart

I could see from the usability tests that the user’s were experiencing many of the same frustrations. These could be prevented by having departures selected on arrival to the site, separating the number of passengers from the flight search and purely concentrating on searching for a flight and booking seats. So I structured the customer journey map to show how a customer would flow through the site.

Desktop Interaction Design

Here are some sketches I did while thinking through the navigation. The idea was to focus on the flight search and booking a flight for one person. After the customer has selected their flight, they would move to the flight details page. Here they can add other passengers, change the travel class, add baggage and book seats. When the customer enters the flight search page, the idea is to have an information bar that updates as they make their selections. The purpose is to show a transparent path of their selected option adding to the total cost as they go.

The Delivery

Desktop Protype

After sketching each screen state, I moved on to creating the medium-fidelity prototype. This prototype could then be fed back into a testing/validation phase and iterated over time for improvements.

Desktop Wireframe

After completing the research, analysis, design and prototyping tasks, I created documentation for the development team after considering everything, so the dev team does not need to guess or fill in any blanks.

What Learned

What I Learned

During this project, I learned many things, but the most important was how to conduct a usability test. I found the sessions extremely fruitful, which assured me that my designs were solving real user problems. In the future, I feel confident about preparing for, conducting and analysing the output from usability tests.

What I Enjoyed

I enjoyed experiencing products through other people, seeing how they interacted with sites their views on how they see and interact with the world.

What I'm Currently Doing

During my UX Diploma, I didn’t test to validate my design work at the end. Next time, I will factor in a testing phase to improve the designs over time. I am currently working on this and will post it on this blog when I have the results.