Ironhack challenge 3: Evaluation and Site Redesign
Hi everyone! Ironhack challenged me to redesign a travel mobile app.
So let’s discover bellow my first case study: Kayak.
Nowadays, searching for a flight has become a child’s play and at a same time a real pain. Kayak, Liligo, Tripadvisor, Booking.com, Skyscanner,…
We have noticed for several years that there are more and more flight comparators on this market. So, they really need to propose a perfect and fluid user experience so that they feel confident.
The real challenge is to succeed in capturing users’s attention and not lose them with these many travel possibilities.
Context:
In order to well understand customer needs and their expectations, I decided to focus on Young group between 20 to 40 years old:
“You and your friends have decided to invest and spend some quality time together. You are planning your trip one year in advance to really make it happen and accommodate everybody’s schedules and needs. You’d like to share as much time together and plan for a lot of fun. You’re interested in a mix of culture and leisure. You have all saved for the last year for the trip so, while you’re still price-conscious this is the opportunity to spoil yourselves.”
First of all, I have conducted a Usability Heuristics evaluation with Nielsen’s Principles to compare Kayak, Skyscanner, Trip Advisor and Hopper. This evaluation allowed me to determine which application best matches my target:
After this evaluation, it was way more clear to deepen my analysis. Hopper and Tripadvisor did not match. On the other hand, Skyscanner and Kayak
matched user profile. I chose to work with Kayak because the most important principles of Nielsen were present. The only missing criterion is regarding the activities to do and places to discover during a trip. Young group people is looking for this feature that’s why I will added it in order to improve the user experience and perform better with the target.
Interviews:
First of all, I have conducted a 5 second test on the Kayak homepage. This test allowed me to better understand what users remembered and what they could do from this page.
After observing the home page for 5 seconds, the interviewees had to answer 4 questions:
- What was the name of the site?
- What did you see?
- What can this tool do for you?
- Where would you search for a flight?
What emerges, in five seconds, is that they all remembered that the site was kayak website.
They have also understood that the website allows them to book a flight or an hotel.
In order to go further, I have conducted 4 interviews. I asked them to complete 3 tasks:
- Book return direct flights from Paris to Lima
- Search a 4-stars hotel with free cancellation
- Search a flight to go to Madrid, save it as favorites and share it with friends
What came out of these interviews is that everything is quite confusing. Indeed, the tendency is to book a flight is to click on the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen but nothing happens. The reality is different. You have to click almost at the top of the screen, this information is understand in a second step.
Because of this, there are too many clicks before arriving to book a flight, find an hotel or share information with friends.
Furthermore, as I said previously, an informative category is missing. Indeed, there is no place where users can find activities to do on site or places to discover. Therefore, it will be necessary to add a function to help organize a trip.
Redesign wireframes:
As you can see above, I redesigned the Kayak app and more precisely I redesigned the home page and I added a category to help with the organization of travel.
If I chose a sober and uncluttered home page, it’s because I noticed that users were lost when there was too much information on the home page.
I also chose to use the very visual icons of the categories so that users know where they are in their navigation.
A magnifying glass to find a means of transport or even mountains for the exploration part and travel organization.
Regarding this last part, I decided to make it accessible from the home page. This will make it easy for users to find the information they need. I was inspired by Tripadvisor which already offers a lot of information on this subject.
Here you can find the link of my proposition and try the experience: https://www.figma.com/proto/mSqMKhiuRnto9cmZOFhzlx/KAYAK?node-id=1%3A2&scaling=scale-down
Key takeaways:
What I learned from this exercise is that user reviews matter a lot.
It is very important to succeed in identifying them and understanding their blocking points.
I also noticed that the 5 second test is a good starting point to understand and define the context. Indeed, once this test is done the main lines of research emerge quite naturally.
Finally, this is my first audit, I still have a lot to learn so that certain actions become reflexes.
Therefore, I am grateful for your feedback and your areas for improvement.
Thanks for reading :-)
