Travel App Design Report
Introduction
As part of the UX/UI course at Ironhack, we have a new challenge for week 4. We are planning to launch a new product for booking travel. We intend to generate revenue based on fees associated with the booking of flights. We want to start by launching a minimum viable product, but considering this is a competitive market to enter, we probably cannot compete solely on price — instead, we need you to help us add value to the experience so that users may start adopting our platform.
Research | Surveys and Interviews
I started with some hypotheses and many questions about how people book their flights. I started sending out a survey to understand better how people feel about traveling by plane, how they search for flights, what apps/websites they use, who they travel with, why do they fly, etc.
After the surveys, I conducted 8 interviews. I wanted to get insights from people who travel often so I contacted people between the age of 25–64 years old who travel for work and also for personal holidays. After the interviews and all the information collected during the research, I could start to see patterns and pain points.
PAIN POINTS
- Online check-in through their email and most times also from the computer.
- Having to look for all the bookings in the email or different apps
- Spend too much time organizing the bookings and feel like the process of booking is too long.
- They also feel poorly organized when they have multiple bookings.
- Cannot find the ticket the company they work for sent to them
- Buy their own ticket and then pass it as expenses to the company
Benchmark
Before getting into the project design and solutions let me show some of the benchmark I did to understand the market better. I did a competitive and comparative analysis. See what competitors are doing well, what can be improved, and a comparison with similar businesses. From the research, I found out that most people use Skyscanner to search for flights but most end up making the booking directly through the airline website.
Problem statement
People who travel for work have to book flights, accommodation, and rental cars very often. They feel frustrated and stressed to look for all the bookings in emails and different apps and feel poorly organized.
Persona
Meet Alicia, she is an international buyer at Mango and she travels every week for work. She would like to be more organized when planning her work trips and her travels.
“ I love my job but traveling so often can be stressful “
Business goals
As part of the project, we set the business goals for this new app. The business goal is to allow travelers to organise their trips and multiple bookings in an easy way. We are offering more than an app to buy flights, we are also allowing the users to have an app for all their bookings, even the ones made from other websites. By offering this service and experience people would most likely make the bookings through the app if the prices are also competitive.
The business would be based on fees coming from other companies who offer their services and we would sell them too. Also could create a points system for customers who could earn points every time they make a booking through the app and make them feel like part of the community and be loyal. Also considered the options to have non-intrusive ads.
High Fidelity Prototype
The basic scenario: Alicia has to go to Vienna for work in less than a week. She wants to book a flight and organise her trip with ekahi app. She has an account and has used it already a few times. Also the admin person from her company has booked her a hotel and linked using Alicia’s email to the app.
With ekahi app Alicia can have all her bookings in one place. She can also book her flights in a very easy and fast way. If someone else makes a booking for her, using her email she can accept to get the booking information in the app.
Colour variations
Through the design process I tried different colour options, below are some of them. Once I decided the brand value and brand attributes it was easier to choose the colour palette. I also got some feedback from potential users and what the colours where communicating them. Let me tell more about the brand, naming and colours.
Brand
I wanted to find a name that was different from other companies and not necessarily mention anything about traveling or booking but more about the concept of the app. This app is about unifying, having all your bookings in one place, and make users feel more confident and calm with the process.
The name ekahi comes from Hawaiian language, it means one (1).
The brand attributes are: attractive, clean, approachable, friendly, efficient, helpful, reliable.
The key colour palette chosen is blue/turquoise and also secondary warm colours like orange, yellow. Blue is the colour of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, stability, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.
Design variations
I started with low fidelity prototypes (sketch). I did a total of 8 user tests and after the feedback, I develop the second iteration. I went through 3 iterations and once I had the final design I did some variations after testing it with participants.
One of the more relevant screens on this app is the ‘trips’ section where users can have all the information about the trip in one place. The first design had all the categories in one screen, very visible but after testing it I realised people wouldn’t use all of them in one trip. Participants mentioned that they may use 4 to 5 for one trip and that it was more important to have a fast access to the information. For that reason, I decided to go for a different design. Instead the tab increased and made a drop-down tab to see the information under that section.
In this screen, I also made some changes after user testing. In the first screen users didn’t have much control or freedom when choosing the flights so decided to make one screen for the outbound flights and one for the inbound, also allowing the users to choose flights individually and I also added a filters options.
Android/iOS
See below a few examples of how android design would translate into iOS. In the first screen, the back button would be at the top left for iOS. In the second screen, the passenger's details, the button would change from a check-box to a switch button as iOS uses.
Next steps
- Test with users and see how it performs
- Develop the app for Android and iOS
- Develop the brand
- Allow other bookings through the app like accommodation, tours, etc…
- Develop the screens — plan the trip (receipts, tours, list, notifications…) into more detail
Thanks for reading and I hope you like it. Also please feel free to comment or if you have any suggestions I will be more than happy to hear them.
Carla Cava — UX/UI Student at Ironhack
