Flight Club Case Study
Rethinking the Flight Booking Experience
Challenge
Design a more relevant flight booking experience for budget-conscious young adults planning a celebratory vacation.
Solution
Created a flight booking website that provides young travelers with up-front fare breakdowns, budget management tools, payment options for splitting the trip cost, and custom suggestions for destination experiences using money saved from their budget.
Methodology
Directed storytelling
Wireframes
Prototyping
Concept and Usability Testing
RESEARCHING THE PROBLEM SPACE
Directed Storytelling Sessions
First things first— I needed to jump into the discovery phase.
I started by conducting directed storytelling interviews with three individuals who had recent experience booking flights so that I could gain a better understanding of user needs, motivations, and pain points.
In synthesizing my notes from each session, a few overarching patterns started to emerge. In my directed storytelling report, I honed in on these shared themes and isolated specific points in the booking process where many participants’ needs aligned.
Reviewing these interview insights helped me to shape a clear and actionable user goal that served as the guiding force for my design:
“My user is a young adult planning a celebratory vacation who wants transparent and budget-friendly fares. The user prioritizes allocating their budget towards experiences at their destination rather than towards most creature comforts on the journey there.”
Excerpts from the report
WIREFRAMING
Hand-Drawn and Digital Sketches
Keeping that user goal in mind, I outlined the architecture of the website and identified a key user task flow. I then hand-sketched several screen concepts, before using the program Sketch to digitize a few of those key screens that worked to creatively and meaningfully target the pain points expressed in user research.
PROTOTYPING
Interactive Prototype
In preparation for user testing, I fine-tuned the digital wireframes and incorporated additional screens that users would need to complete the primary task flow. At this time, I put my prototyping skills to use, developing an interactive clickable prototype of the website in Axure RP.
CONCEPT & USABILITY TESTING
Think-Aloud Usability Sessions
To assess the effectiveness and usability of this iteration of the design, I conducted concept and usability testing with three participants. My goal was to evaluate how users interpreted the flight booking processes according to their task scenario, and to see whether they were able to successfully arrive at and review the “Experiences” preview page.To ensure that findings from each session were reliable and consistent, I prepared a test script that established the purpose for the session, the nature of a think-aloud usability test, and introduced the scenario and assigned task for users to try and accomplish with the prototype. Each session was approximately 35 minutes.
Assigned Task: Assume you want to find flights for you and a friend for a trip to San Diego. In this scenario, your task is to use this website to book the best flight deals within your budget.
TEST FINDINGS
The concept and usability review provided valuable insights as to what the design does well, and where it needs additional work. To demonstrate this, I aggregated the salient findings from testing, focusing on:
(a) Consistent Pain Points (mild problem areas validated by a majority of users)
(b) Positive Feedback (notable positive elements validated by a majority of users), and
(c) Additional Opportunity Areas (feedback from a minority of participants that may provide valuable insights with additional testing)
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Create a more distinct connection between the color-coding around each fare and the user’s set budget on the Departing and Returning Flights pages, and simplify the color scheme. Incorporating a simple color-coded legend above the fare pricing section (draft Sketch shown here) as well as a clearly marked “hover-over” information text box here would increase this feature’s accessibility and eliminate guesswork as to its logic on behalf of the user.
2. Clarify the itemized breakdown of the trip for 2+ travelers on the Trip Summary page. Users were unsure about whether the fare and add-on fees shown on the left of the fare breakdown were costs per individual passenger (i.e., that each values shown still needed to be multiplied by 2), or whether those amounts had already taken into account all passengers on the trip (i.e., the values had already been multiplied by 2). To fix this, any amount that takes into account more than one passenger should include a parens confirming this (e.g., “(X2)” for two passengers).
3. Adjust layout and broaden categories on the Experiences page. To maximize engagement on the “Experiences” preview page, bring the content further up the page, minimizing the need to scroll. Display more varied activities such as zoos, museums, bike rentals, guided tours, etc. If the user has an account, offer the option to preselect the types of activities they typically enjoy on vacations and apply that information when populating their preview page.
Initial sketch of recommendation #1: fare and budget color-coding