Airline Website
FLY AWAY
OVERVIEW
Booking a flight online involves more than selecting two cities and departure times. Airlines have given consumers many more choices when booking a flight. Do you want: economy/business, hand luggage/checked luggage, seats, insurances and more...
Each choice requires a decision and has a cost implication. More choices also come with more opportunities for errors.
I have performed a research to better understand the online booking process, and where the processes can be improved
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
I have performed a benchmark analysis on the user experience of three popular airline websites - EasyJet, Transavia and Vueling and one hotel aggregator - Booking.com
SURVEY
To get a sense of what kinds of activities users most often do when they visit the airline sites, I asked how they accessed the site and the tasks recently attempted. Looking at airfares was the top reason users reported visiting an airline website on mobile following that was to check in to a flight, check the status of a flight and retrieve boarding passes. However, the majority of purchases were made on desktop, most users mentioned they use a desktop or laptop to purchase tickets because it feels more secure and is easier on the larger screen.
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USABILITY TESTS & DEPTH INTERVIEW
I recruited 4 participants and asked them about their most recent experience using Transavia and EasyJet websites.
The participants in the usability test and interviews answered questions about their prior experience. I was interested in visitors’ attitudes toward the site, problems they had with the site, the way they book and search for a flight, the way they communicate with their fellow travelers and the reasons they use these websites. Their task was to book a flight on one of the websites following some sub-tasks and recorded their experience.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP
AFFINITY DIAGRAM
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USER FLOW
Most airlines have between five and seven steps in their checkout process – including travel dates, flight selection, add luggage, seat selection, payment, and confirmation. It’s crucial to keep users actively engaged throughout this procedure. A solution many airlines adopt is to highlight the selected flight and price and fix them in the sidebar, that way they remain in view. According to the survey, the majority of users made their final booking decision on mobile but moved to another device to make the booking. This suggests that customers aren’t finding what they need from airline companies on mobile.
WIREFRAMES
CONCLUSIONS
Localization
One of the first impressions that you get is flexible and full localization, travelers want to visit websites translated into their native tongue and see prices in the currencies they can relate to. Even top airlines have drawbacks either in language localization or in currency conversion. For instance, EasyJet fails at showcasing prices at local currencies.
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Make automated localization
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Allow users to change the language and location, independently
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Show fares in the currency relevant to a booking location
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Allow switching between currencies
Dates and flex search
Users want flexibility when overviewing departure and arrival dates. Flexible search is available for everyone, and yet even the largest airlines don’t leverage this tool to the full extent. EasyJet, Transavia, and many others show +/-3 days per each given date, but this is not enough. Show the full calendar with prices allowing travelers to pick the best price-time match.
EasyJet has an unusual flex search, and there are problems with using it. First of all, there are no indications on the flight booking widget that flex search even exists. The calendar menu slides from the right, and you may notice, but probably will not, there’s a switch to the lowest fares calendar, but there’s another block, you need to choose specific airports (if a city has multiple airports, you have to pick one to reach flex search) on top of that, once you have reached the flex calendar you overview a bulky calendar which is overwhelming and not easy to understand.
Registration
The last stage, which can actually be divided into multiple sub-stages, is perhaps the most stressful one.
Don’t make website sign-in mandatory, communicate why it may be beneficial. Most user actions on websites should be available without registration, intrusive sign-in popups break user flow and are annoying.
Sign-in should be optional and never get in the way of booking. Certainly, if you already have an account, this allows the website to autocomplete some forms and streamline your booking, but there may be many reasons to avoid doing that. Some airlines break the booking flow and request sign-in at some unexpected point. EasyJet does it and adds a lot of tension to the booking process.
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Allow guest booking
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Provide clear reasons why sign-in is beneficial
Luggage
Adding Luggage is another important booking step. I encourage high flexibility with luggage, which allows travelers to pick the lowest fares but still be able to add additional luggage during the booking process.
My survey's results show that flexibility plays a major role when it comes to luggage, users want to have control over the weight and the costs.
Users want to know what they are paying for, does it include hand luggage? what are the conditions etc, they don't need to put any effort in order to look for this information, be transparent and show the rules and allowances.
Ensure maximum price transparency with minimal user effort. In most cases, travelers will have a hard time understanding how much they must pay to add sports equipment or extra bags. I embrace full transparency that allows travelers to assess all their spendings before paying for their tickets.
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Allow users to customize their luggage weight
Mobile
Airlines create apps but can only expect rare use of them, as most travelers won’t bother installing multiple apps from different suppliers. because of that, the first choice for airlines should be making sure that their websites are responsive on mobile while providing the same functionality available on a desktop. Mobile applications, on the other hand, should support users in their after-purchase activities, like online check-in.
A user may search via mobile, book via desktop and check-in via a tablet. Airlines need to pay attention to this shift in user behavior and make sure they invest in the cross-device user experience.