Air Peace: a UX case study

Brief

Air Peace is a private Nigerian airline with its head office in Lagos State, Nigeria. Air Peace, which provides passenger and charter services, serves the major cities of Nigeria. It was founded in 2013.

Problem

According to J.D. Power, 87% of travelers used the Internet for the bulk of their travel planning in 2012, yet the online booking experience being offered by modern airlines is still stuck in the 90s.

Inspired by the opportunity to bring progressive disruption to this huge marketplace, we reviewed the AirPeace website, and graded it against

Design and Usability criteria including: information architecture, interaction design and visual design. The results were disheartening. We believe that unless airlines take drastic measures to improve their digital experiences, third-party sites like Kayak and Expedia will continue to eat into their profits. So we launched an experiment to explore, “what if?”

Hypothesis

In today’s digital world we value speed and simplicity. This is what enables one-click shopping and real-time updates on everything from world news to what your friend had for lunch. But somehow the potentially engaging activity of booking a flight is actually quite the opposite. What would an engaging airline site look like?

The Process

Following the IDEO model for the human-centered design, I started the process with usability testing and ended with validation. This process provided me with a roadmap and a solid foundation to base my design solutions on users findings.

User Research

Persona

First I created a provisional persona for a typical user for the AirPeace website based on online research and the base of users within my friends and family.

Then I created a storyboard, where Faruk is facing a problem in getting a befitting flight experience, but using the AirPeace website helped him overcome this problem. Imagining the scenario helped me empathize with the users, and I could better address the frustrations they would face.

Storyboard

Ideation

I started sketching out solutions on paper to give freedom to my flow of thought and not be constrained by details. My main objective was to create an easy flow and a clearer way to navigate the AirPeace website.

Prototyping

After sketching on paper I turned my ideas into high fidelity screens using Sketch, then used Marvel to create a clickable prototype to validate my solutions.

Design Solutions

Utility

A simple search function that is flexible based on your specific needs.

Presentation

Static text and form fields replaced with relevant, attractive imagery and simple, intuitive toolsets.

Navigation

Our ideal airline website would offer icon-driven navigation to say more in less space.

Discovery

Beyond utility, an experience that encourages exploration and discovery of limitless options.

Validation

I tested the prototype with 7 new users using the same scenario used for guerilla testing to validate if the problem has been solved.

I also conducted comprehension tests on the home screen, to see if placing the “Latest” there made sense to users. Most users had no problem identifying it.