Colibri Airlines - 2022
Ux Design Institute - Professional Diploma in UX Design

Context

For this graduation project I had to design a website for a start-up airline. They were looking to create an online experience that is fast, easy and intuitive: one that’s based on a deep understanding of their target users

Goal

The Goal was to design a new website for my client by focusing specifically on the flight booking process: how users search for and select flights online. To do this I’ll had to go through the full UX process. The end goal was to design and build a clickable prototype that can be tested with users, along with a detailed set of wireframes.

Problem

How can I improve the user experience of an airline website? Considering that there are already tons of airlines in the market. How can I do it better?

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final result

Step 1

Research

- Competitive benchmarking

- Online survey

- Note-taking

- Usability test

Competitive benchmark

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step 2

Task: Review of 4 best-in-class airline websites: Ryanair, Wizzair, Easyjet and TAP.

The Analysis will focus on four key aspects of the user experience in each of the selected companies' websites: Homepage; Search flights and Select flights.

Goal: The main purpose of this benchmark analysis was to understand the competitive landscape of air travel booking websites. Understand conventions and highlight best practices.

Ryanair

Project-1-Competitive-benchmark-Sofia-Malato_page-0004.jpg

BOOKING PROCESS: Scrolls: 5 Clicks: 31

Best practices:

- It Recognizes the current location;

- Information is easy to find even though the layout, it's a bit noisy;

- In a marketing point of view, Ryanair it's well done since it induces the user to pay attention to sales, offers, etc. The downside, is that the annoyance level is considerable, reducing the quality of the user experience, the users tolerate it because it's affordable.

- It memorize previously searched destinations;

Error in heuristics and usability:

- It's not straightforward how to contact customer support;

- There is no search bar;

- Interface with too much visual noise;

- Tricks users to buy extras;

- It's only possible to change language and country in the homepage.

- It’s mandatory to have an account.

WizzAir

Project-1-Competitive-benchmark-Sofia-Malato_page-0008.jpg

BOOKING PROCESS: Scrolls: 4 Clicks: 30

Best practices:

- It recognizes the current location, but we need to click on the type box to select it;

- The information is easy to find, there is a good balance of colours, images and text.

- It's fast enough, marketing and extra services are easy to ignore, making the user experience smoother than, for instance, on Ryanair;

- The use of icons near navigation makes it easier to identify:

Error in heuristics and usability:

- The homepage is missing an alert/important last minute messages CTA;

- In the search results page, it's time consuming to check prices, since we need to click on every single day to be able to see the cost of flights.

- It doesn’t memorize previously searched destinations;

- There is no visible CTA “contact us” icon;

- There is no search bar;

- It’s mandatory to have an account.

Easyjet

Project-1-Competitive-benchmark-Sofia-Malato_page-0015.jpg

BOOKING PROCESS: Scrolls: 0 Clicks: 30

Best practices:

- It Recognizes the current location;

- The booking time it’s fast, the user it's not overwhelmed with marketing and it's fast and easy to skip steps;

- The information is clear and easy to find;

- It memorizes previously searched destinations;

- The prices are indicated in the calendar, making it faster to make a decision;

Error in heuristics and usability:

- The homepage is missing an alert/important last minute messages CTA;

- There is no search bar;

- There is no visible CTA “contact us” icon;

- Unclear use of icons in the primary navigation drop-down;

- If we set the country to the UK, we can't choose to see the price in euros;

- On the search flights CTA, there is no icon to invert the destinations;

- The colour palette makes it harder to notice important information;

- It’s mandatory to have an account.

TAP

Project-1-Competitive-benchmark-Sofia-Malato_page-0020.jpg

BOOKING PROCESS: Scrolls: 1 Clicks: 21

Best practices:

- Good final overview of the selected flights;

- The user is not overwhelmed with marketing and extra services or questioned many times about the choices made;

- The information is clear and easy to find;

- There is a good balance of colours, images and text, there is a good use of icons and animations;

- There is a search bar;

- Customer care and "contact us" CTA it's easy to find;

- It's not mandatory to have an account.

Error in heuristics and usability:

- It doesn't recognize the current location;

- It's possible to select any date even if the flight isn’t available for the selected date;

- It's not possible to edit the search, we need to do it from scratch;

- Confusing layout of the search results page, it's not straightforward if the flight is inbound or outbound;

- It's difficult to confront prices of outbound and inbound together;

- There are no details in the cart, only the price, so the user can't know what he has already selected.

Online Survey

Task: Gather feedback from a minimum of 15 relevant users to the study, that have used an airline website in the past 4 weeks. Create an online survey with maximum 10 questions.

Goal: The main purpose of this online survey is to learn more about the goals, behaviour and the context of the people that use airline websites and apps:

- Understand the context;

- Understand what they are trying to do;

- Whether anything is preventing them from doing it;

- What other features they would like to see.

Number of filled surveys:

41 people participated in this survey only 33 were considered.

What I have learned with the survey

Context:

- 80.5% used an airline website or app in the past 4 weeks;

- 63.6% prefers using a smartphone over the laptop/desktop;

- 77.8% of the users were at home when they used the airline website or app,

47.2% used their smartphone and 30.6% a desktop or laptop.

Users goals:

- 47.1% of users booked a flight;

- 23.5% checked the prices;

- 17.6% checked the flight schedule;

- 87.9% could complete their task that day.

Most of the users booked flights, this could be linked with the fact that the survey was done during the Christmas holidays. 87.9% were able to complete their task, which means that the display of information should be accessible and clear. Most users were satisfied (51.5%) or very satisfied (18.2%) with their user experience and felt browsing was simple, fast and pleasant, which means in most cases the website and the app is well designed and comply with the needs of the users. 27.3% of users had an average experience, while 3% had a poor experience. This means there were some pain points in usability therefor, there is space for improvement.

Users behaviours:

Most of the users choose the website for this reason:

- 44.4% Lowest prices;

- 25% Most convenient dates and times;

- 16.7% available destinations.

To book their flight it took them approximately:

- 46.4% booked in 1 day;

- 25% took less than 1 week;

- 14.3% took about 1 week to 2 weeks;

- 14.3% took about 2 weeks to 1 month.

Price is the most important aspect to make users decide one airline over the other. Most users took 1 day to 1 week to book their flight, users that book in less time, usually prefers to use smartphone over the desktop/laptop.

Overall:

The main complaint was about the information, that is unclear and not easy to find, especially concerning flight change. Also, the checkout and check-in process have too many steps and should be faster. There isn’t always transparency, users get confused about the actual price of things and there are too many suggestions of extra options to purchase (car, hotel, insurance). The customer care and the app also need improvement.

What decisions did I make based on these results?

When designing Colibri's website, I focused on making a clear layout, with important information visible and easy to find, I focused on making easy to skip steps without having to scroll so that the booking experience could be fast and focused on the users' needs. I made sure the price was visible and well explained.

Note-taking

Task: Watch the recordings of two usability tests for desktop. Take detailed notes, focusing on the goals, behaviours, context, positive interactions, and pain points for each participant.

Goal:

- Learn the value of conducting usability tests in research.

- Build skills in this extremely important research technique.

- Use the insights learned in the current project.

User 1 / Task 1 - Aer Lingus

Scenario: Book a flight on Aer Lingus

- From Cork to Faro with return flight;

- During school mid-turn break, preferable from Saturday 26/10/2019 until Saturday 02/11/2019;

- For 1 week / 7 nights;

- For 2 people.