It enabled me to examine my ideas before moving onto digital wireframes. Once I had a visual direction for the app layout, I started to add more details and precisions to the sketches by turning them into mid-fidelity wireframes. As previously mentioned, my aim was to offer simplified menus that allow users to reach their goals without obstacles. Based on my research, I uncovered that users would use airline apps for three main reasons: book flights, check-in before travelling and create digital boarding passes.
Consequently, I decided to display those three options only on the Homepage. For each category, the user will be taken to separate menus to make their selection. Majority of users would be looking to book the cheapest flights possible. As a result, I wanted to add price information early on in the booking process. While choosing dates, and whether the users have specific dates in mind or only intend to browse, I incorporated the flights average price for one passenger for each day.
I chose to do so with a graph calendar view which gives visual support when looking at dates and associated prices. Fare options can arguably be the number one user pain point in the booking experience. They usually come with lengthy text of explanation or are badly prompted. While the intention is to offer packages that can benefit the users but they just end up confusing them more than anything else.
The users can select when adding the amount of passenger and a concise explanation given for each option. The research showed that users had different expectations on how the flight results should appear. I chose to display the flights by time of departure as a default option as users are usually willing to make a trade off between price and timings when making their selection. Upon selection, a notification tab bar would animate at the bottom of the screen to confirm the selection.
This feature is commonly found on e-commerce apps and provides confidence to the users when selecting items. However I noticed that it was barely used in airline apps. As mentioned before, users can be easily frustrated when forms are asking for too many details, and some of them can also look irrelevant.
For those reasons, I kept the form as simple as possible and only asked for titles and names. The email address is required for the main booker in order to get a digital receipt. Users can expand the menu and edit their selections directly on there. Again a common feature in e-commerce which seems to fit the needs to the users in this context too.
In the booking process, this step is usually associated with annoying upsells, endless promotions and offers to scroll through. Here, I kept the options simple: add your luggages and select your seats. These are the two extras users have an expectation to choose and pay for. Initially, I was a bit worried that it would be a lot to go through on one screen. During my research, I noticed that some participants struggled to review the trip details effectively due to the abundance of information to review on one screen.
As a result, I condensed the details into sub-menus that can be expandable or collapsable. Within the sub-menus, users can edit their selections. With the first prototype ready, I went on to carry out moderated usability testing with 6 participants. The goal was for them complete a full flight booking. While the app incorporated design patterns that could be commonly found in other communication apps, I was curious see whether the new functions would offer comprehensive solutions to the challenges found during the research phase.
As for the notification tab bar, I changed it to an overlay screen as it animates in and added a dark background around it, so the focus is drawn into it when it appears. I conducted a final round of usability testing to review the latest changes made. The sessions were unmoderated and I collected feedback from 16 participants. The goals were widely similar to the first round as I wanted the participants to test the menus involved on the booking process. However I was keen to learn whether the changes made would eliminate the issues encountered by the previous participants.
I was pleased to see that the changes made, on the back first round of testing, eliminated the issues faced by the previous participants. However a couple of other issues surfaced. As a result, I added more shade to darken the colours and chose to opt for a dark font with yellow background.
Seat selection: when selecting seats, the aisles indicators, at the top, quickly come out of the screen as the users scroll down. It makes it harder to locate specific seats. To resolve this issue, I have moved the indicators closer to the seats and added them to each categories.
While designing all the screens individually, I found myself going back to several of the tools and living documents. This helped me come up with a solution that would add the most value to the application. I also found myself overcoming several challenges by trusting the process.
Here are a few of my takeaways from this project:. We have become increasingly aware of our impact in accelerating the global warming, but airline companies have their fair share of the blame.
With this in mind, I would take the following next steps for the app. Want to find out more about my work? UX Planet is a one-stop resource for everything related to…. UX Designer Content Writer. UX Planet is a one-stop resource for everything related to user experience. Sign in. UX Planet. UX case study: Airtrack. An airline app that delivers the easiest booking experience. Kevin Aguesseau Follow.
Figma Created with Figma. American Airlines had the lowest task success scores, driven by unnoticeable and inefficient forms for multiple passengers see below. To get a sense of what kinds of activities participants most often do when they visit the airline sites, we asked how they accessed the site and the tasks recently attempted. Unsurprisingly, the majority of participants reported only visiting airline websites a few times a year, which fits with how often [pdf] most people travel by air.
Some participants mentioned they use a desktop or laptop to purchase tickets because it feels more secure and is easier on the larger screen:. The usability study revealed 15 unique problem types across the websites. The main problems users encountered were unclear filtering options, difficulty selecting seats, an abundance of passenger information required, and issues using the calendar selectors.
Full details on the problems and task metrics are available in the report. Yet we observed that many participants missed the filtering options on the American Airlines, Delta, jetBlue, and Southwest websites suggesting this is a clear opportunity for improvement.
It would be nicer if the time of departure were set in order so it can be easily selected throughout the process without taking too much time. We recommend making the options to sort and filter flights more noticeable to improve the booking experience.
Being able to narrow flights will allow users to find the right flight. Figure 1: There is a lack of filtering options on the American Airlines website e.
The Sort By drop-down list was not used likely unnoticed by many participants. The banner looks nice but likely distracts users and makes it easy for people to skip straight to the different cabin experiences.
The seat selection process was challenging on some of the airline websites; in particular, Frontier had the lowest task success rate for selecting a seat. From the video analysis, we also saw 2 of 5 participants struggle to understand which passenger and flight they were selecting a seat for. When users did select a seat, the check mark was presented very briefly, making selected seats indistinguishable from unavailable seats.
A clearer legend close to the seating chart and better messaging would have helped participants. Video 1: Video showing a participant struggling with seat selection watch for the disappearing check mark. A legend located closer to the seating chart would also be beneficial to help users understand why some seats cost extra.
The seating problem also came up in our PURE analysis. All four of the airlines with a Yellow overall PURE score had issues with seat selection that our expert reviewers expected would create significant cognitive load or delays for users. For Alaska Airlines which had a Red score , the seat selection process can sometimes be impossible to complete through the website if the flight is through a partner airline.
Image 4: For third-party flights, no clear instructions or links indicate to the user how to finish seat selection, making failure likely and giving Alaska Airlines a Red overall score. Each airline also has a different way of designating which seats cost extra. Furthermore, many airlines have different ticket pricing schemes that allow certain privileges such as seating choice, hour cancellation, and refreshments.
This unclear terminology lowered user confidence. It was difficult for participants to quickly understand the pricing for each ticket between regular and premium seating on Alaska Airlines, Frontier, jetBlue, and United. I think this may have been partly due to the terminology used making it less obvious. We also asked participants their attitudes about being charged for a seat and what type of seating is worth extra to them. Some other airlines charge for that! Making the pricing options more obvious to users may reduce the frustration and confusion of seating travel companions together although it will also likely reduce fees collected.
The calendars for choosing travel dates on the Frontier and Delta websites were quite cumbersome. On Delta, users had a hard time understanding the departure and return date selection. The branding of the header blends into the selection details making it difficult to know where to click problems with the affordances.
On Delta, users are prompted to select both their departure and return dates from a single calendar. This interaction confused 1 out of 5 observed participants and can be seen in the video example below. Video 2: Video showing a participant struggling with selecting the dates in the unified Delta calendar. This poor calendar experience may contribute to the problem.
We also observed that the calendar date selector, while a handy interaction pattern for selecting dates for upcoming travel, was heavily relied upon by most of the airlines for any date inputs, including date of birth. It can be inefficient to select a date 18—60 years in the past, whereas typing a birthdate is much faster and, with proper error handling, can be just as effective.
Buying airline tickets means filling out required information such as full legal names, addresses, phone numbers, and ages all often required by the TSA.
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