My First Stab at the UX Process

The Challenge:

I recently began a User Experience Design Program at Prime Digital Academy. In the six-weeks leading up to the 12-week in-class, crash course, we completed a project guided by weekly assignments and instructor feedback. The project objective: design a website for finding and booking commercial airline flights.

The Process:

Research

Using Directed Storytelling, I interviewed three participants who have experience booking commercial airline flights online. All of the interviewees where in their early 20's, used flight booking sites for personal travel, and mentioned low-cost as their main priority.

Ideation and Wireframe Creation

Keeping user goals in mind, I hand-sketched wireframes for three screens and then digitized them on Sketch. I included search boxes for users to select their departure city, destination(s), and travel dates as well as filtration features such as number of stops and passengers. The included calendar allows users with flexible travel dates to choose flights leaving on days with the lowest price, and tickets generated in searches automatically sort from lowest to highest price. 

While I only created wireframes for flights, the site also include a "Bundle and Save" option allowing users to save more money through bundling their flights with accommodations and other incidentals.

Prototyping and Usability Testing

In Axure, I created an interactive prototype of my design, adding in an additional booking confirmation and account sign in screen. The prototype was then tested on potential users, in a think-aloud usability test. The results were documented in a usability report, and my main findings are highlighted below. Check out that same prototype here!

Learning

Overall, test-users found the website easy to navigate, although three things stood out as needing improvement most: 

1. Users would benefit from additional, detailed information. For example, although users inferred the sites general purpose from the "fly cheap" logo and airplane image, textual evidence would add clarity.
2. Users wanted to see their ticket information on the booking confirmation page in addition to the confirmation email.
3. It took users longer than expected to figure out that flights were automatically sorted from cheapest to most expensive. More intentionally highlighting the cheapest flight's price—perhaps making the price pop with a vibrant color—would add clarity.

Next Steps

If I were to continue with this project, I would implement the changes, test the new prototype and gauge its successful in order to determine if additional modifications need to be made and repeat.

General Thoughts on the Process

While there is still a lot of room for improvement, this project gave me a general feeling for the iterative UX process of learning, designing, building, and testing. I look forward to starting the in-class portion of the program where I will continue to learn and progress. Woohoo!