The journey for an accessible booking form (Part 2)
In the first segment we had a look at what most airlines are doing wrong (or half-right) and how they tend to approach booking forms.
In this part we will lay down what elements we need for an MDP (Minimum Delightful Product) version of an accessible booking form.
Apart from past experience and user research I plan on writing my shopping list taking a few hints from the following sources:
- NN/G’s 10 Usability Heuristics. Broad rules of thumb for good UX. If your product covers all 10 it is safe to say that you are offering a solid experience to your users.
- The GOV.UK design guide. One of the most accessible websites out there. Its design is geared towards anyone really and it has been designed in such a way that even people not overly familiar with technology can still use the basics.
- ARIA guide on Mozilla Developer Network. To provide the basics on how to optimise our form for accessibility.
- Lastly, I recently discovered this article “Accessibility according to actual people with disabilities” which shone some more light on the daily struggles users face when browsing the internet.
We are going to be splitting our shopping list in to three parts. One for the functional “UX” elements, one for the design elements our form must have and lastly one for the accessibility elements we need to cover to ensure our form is highly accessible.
Functional Elements:
- Distinct goals: Our form needs to have an identifiable goal. What is it for and what should users expect when they complete the form. Making it easy to identify the end result or at least what the user should expect once she completes the form.

- Obvious states in form fields and buttons: The form should always show the current progress and necessary steps needed to help users in its completion.

- Transparency on the form’s functions: Avoid dark patterns and make sure the user knows what they are clicking. Also, whether it is things like help links or extra terms, these should always be visible and the user must always be aware of them without searching.

- Responsive layout: Apart from making sure the form is accessible on most devices it needs to also work when the user has zoomed in, ideally even in the most extreme levels of zoom.

Design Elements:
- Big and legible fonts: The form should have a minimum level of legibility. This will aid users in cases where visibility on a screen is not ideal (e.g under direct sunlight) or if no zoom is provided to the user through the device/browser of their choice.

- Contrasting colours: Similar to the above, low visibility scenarios and vision impairment should be taken into consideration. e.g Under direct sunlight. Colours should be contrasting with gray hues being distinguishable.

- Minimal design: The form should be using design elements that are absolutely necessary. Even when taking branding into consideration the design approach should be that anything extra or superfluous can only serve as a distraction to the users.

Accessibility Elements:
- Flexibility and efficiency of use: Taken straight out of the 10 Heuristics. e.g Ensure that users have multiple ways to complete the form, whether by mouse or keyboard.

- ARIA compatible: Ensure that to a large extend the form is ARIA supported and devices such as screen readers are able to read the form.

- Guidance and help: Provide users with guidance on how to fill up the form or even alternative ways if the primary method is too challenging or just plain difficult.

So, that’s our shopping list. Broken down in digestible elements that will act as a guide for our project.
So what now?
We know the elements we need to have in our form, but how do we get started?
Thankfully we are starting from scratch, so prototyping our booking form and testing it with users should not be a problem. These early stages can provide crucial information on the direction we must follow.
But what about airlines? They already have an established booking form and it is surely difficult to completely replace one system for another. So how can they implement those improvements?
Follow industry standards, UX Heuristics and take inspiration by succesful and contemporary form layouts. Then get started with A/B testing, make small changes and test the impact they have on your users.
This will ensure that the changes you make have an actively measurable metric of success and you wont need to change your whole layout in one go (thereby risking it being as unusable as your current form).
Slowly enhancing the experience you provide to your users can increase exponentially their willingness to go through your form. This could positively impact aspects such as your conversion rates up to the overall look, feel and service you provide as an airline.
In the next segment I will start designing our booking form. Testing several ways to approach our shopping list and figuring out what the ideal form would look like.
This is the second article of the “Journey to an accessible booking form”, you can also read my previous article about the pitfalls in airline booking forms here.
