A Guerilla Usability Test on JetBlue’s Booking Experience
I like to fly with JetBlue but every time I go through the digital booking process, I notice how clunky the experience is. I decided to test the interface with more users to see if there’s room for improvement. I decided to test the interface with more users to see if there’s room for improvement.
I ran a usability test to discover key issues with JetBlue’s flight booking process.
Objective
Identify pain points in the current JetBlue’s flight booking experience:
Test Parameters
What: JetBlue flight + seat selection flow.
Who: Users who fly with JetBlue.
Where: Coffeeshop in Boston.
Every user that I tested the interface with has had experience booking a flight with JetBlue. Male-to-female ratio of the group was equal. Age of the users ranged from 21 to 54, with a median at 32.
Test Tasks
- Find a round-trip flight.
- Sort flights (by price, duration, arrival/departure time).
- Enter traveler information.
- Choose a seat.
The users were prompted to perform the tasks listed above with open-ended scenarios that only gave vague direction.
An example task sounded like this: “You’re traveling to Chicago on July 15th and coming back on 20th. Based on the things that matter to you, pick a flight and book it”.
This approach revealed a lot of interesting insights about people’s flying habits and helped me understand ways in which their experience could be improved. For example, a woman who always travels with her 5-year old son always picks the shortest flight possible. And a man who often goes on business trips, selects exclusively non-stop flights with seating available at the front of the plane to save time.
Processing feedback
Reviewing and organizing notes:
Findings
I’m focusing on two top issues revealed by the usability tests. Issue #1 is that users misunderstand the meaning behind Blue Plus and Blue Flex options. Issue #2 is that users have difficulty sorting and filtering flights. Besides being the most frequent pain points, both of these issues should be of high priority to JetBlue as a business.
Issue #1:
Users associate Blue Plus and Flex options with business class or special membership deals when in fact each option is designed to fit the needs of an individual traveler and doesn’t have to do anything with business class.
“I assume these are some special membership options. Don’t think I need them”
“I never choose this premium stuff… I always go with the simplest and cheapest option”
Why should it matter to the user?
If users don’t rationally compare fare options, they can end up spending more than intended. For example, picking the cheapest (Blue) option and checking in luggage at the airport will cost more than picking a slightly more expensive Blue Plus option from the start.
Why should it matter to JetBlue?
JetBlue doesn’t want to scare users away from Blue Plus or Flex options. Instead they’d like users to be comfortable navigating among the given options.
Current design:
Problem with the current design: Most users don’t infer how much luggage they can check in from this view.
My suggestions:
- Make the luggage information more readable.
- Make the call to action for exploring the options more prominent.
My design solution 1:
Giving more white space around suitcase icons and introducing a link “learn more” to invite the user to compare the options.
My design solution 2:
Using verbal communication instead of icons and adding an overarching “Compare” button that is more visually connected to all three options.
Current explanation of Blue/Plus/Flex differences
Clicking on the link “Compare fare options” or any of the blue bars brings up the popup window below:
Problem with the current design: Long list of details that doesn’t focus on distinguishing the differences between the fare options.
Letting the user compare options at a glance is crucial in helping them make a quick decision and proceed with the booking.
My suggestion:
Highlight the distinctions between fare options.
My assumption is that at this point in the experience the user is likely to be decided on booking with JetBlue. Because of that describing the perks that are the same across the board does not help the user, but only gets in the way of making a quick and simple decision.
My design solution:
Issue #2:
Every single user has a problem sorting or filtering flights based on their needs.
“Is the cheapest flight $640? Oh it’s $510? I can’t tell! That’s why I use Google Flights”
“I’d like to pick the shortest flight but this doesn’t tell me which one is the shortest”
Why should it matter to the user?
Users need a quick and clear way to filter and sort flights instead of trying to eyeball the differences.
Why should it matter to JetBlue?
If this isn’t fixed, users are likely to search for flights with competitor tools that offer clearer sorting and filtering options.
Current design:
Problems with the current design:
- The controls are all widely distributed.
- The controls are visually inconsistent.
- Up/down arrows are hard to see and click.
My suggestions:
- Maintain visual consistency across filtering and sorting controls.
- Make controls more accessible and recognizable by putting them in one place.
My design solution:
Next steps
- A/B test the two solutions to the first issue of misunderstanding Blue, Plus, and Flex options.
- Testing the new filtering + sorting solution.
- Moving on to evaluating next identified pain point.
*I’m not affiliated with JetBlue in any way.