Away
Airline App, enhancing the flight search experience
Main objective
Away is an airline app developed as a project for my Professional Diploma in UX Design from the UX Design Institute. The project's primary goal was to enhance the flight search and bokking experience, making it more intuitive and efficient.
Understanding the problem
Design process
Competitive Benchmarking
I started by selecting and comparing 4 mobile apps in the airline industry to learn best design practices and gain insights on good and bad user experience. Using Usability Heuristics and key design criteria, I also identified areas for improvement to use later in the design phase.
Key findings
Essential actions as "book a flight" option are clearly displayed as primary buttons.
Navigation is simple and accessible, presented as a navbar menu.
Best practices lean to provide essential flight search actions when landing in the homepage.
Best practices divide the "search and select" process into steps for a guided workflow.
Key Information such as dates, number of passengers, prices and flight details must be easy to edit.
Usability Testing & Note Taking
I observed and conducted multiple usability test to understand and identify the main user goals, behaviors and pain points throughout the interaction of 4 different airline apps. The main task asked to be completed by the users focused on flight and date selection.
“That is not obvious there, I will expect to go to a new screen for the return date”
“I will expect to see if I have a stopover and see all the information and details of the flight”
“Here my instinct worked better, for example the orange highlights important information”
Key findings
Lack of information visibility for Fare Benefits caused concern, as users only discovered the information after multiple actions.
Unclear presentation of layovers was mentioned as a key issue for the users.
Lack of customization for the search options throughout the process cause the users confusion and frustration.
Information overload or lack of enough information in key stages of the process was mentioned by all users as some of the major pain points.
Similarity and consistency with industry standard, such as the calendar display for results, tags highlighting key information, and effective use of color provides an easier, more enjoyable experience.
In the Analysis phase I continued by generating an Affinity Diagram to organize all collected information from the previous research. This diagram was built by grouping the data based in similarities and relationships.
The affinity diagram provided valuable insights into the key steps for the flight search and booking process which I categorized in five stages: pre-booking, book and flight selection, departure and return selection, flight summary and post-booking. These steps formed the foundation for generating a Customer Journey Map. In this case, we not only mapped the user steps in a linear flow but also identified emotional low points, revealing opportunities to streamline and enhance the workflow.
The design phase began with the creation of a high level booking flow, meticulously crafted to determine each step, its content, and the overall process to achieve the main user goal of booking a flight. This flow was built by recognizing key issues user face in their current experiences, with the objective of addressing these pain points and improve and solve the major challenges positively.
Next, I generated an initial wireframe of the process, starting with a low fidelity design iteration. This included a series of distinct screen sketches that followed the intended user flow. Some sketched were accompanied with notes to support each stage and propose key components to support the primary goal of booking a flight.
Away: Effortless Flight, Unlimited Possibilities
The prototype phase involved developing a medium fidelity design and interactive prototype. Building upon the previously explored flows and wireframes, Away app was born.
Effective Communication with the Development Team
The last stage, called Annotations, consisted on identifying key components and elements, providing detailed technical specifications to ensure clarity and remove any ambiguity for the Development Team responsible for coding the app.
