Introduction to RiseAir
RiseAir is a scheduled and charter airline primarily serving the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
Project overview
The purpose of this project is to redesign the landing page to increase the users engagement with the website.
Methods
Heuristic evaluation
Card sorting
IA
Persona
Journey map
Usability Test
Prototype
Year
January 2022
Timeline
4 weeks
Main Tools
Miro
Figma
Photoshop
Teams
My role
I worked as a UX designer and researcher on this project delivering a website redesign end-to-end. I conducted card sorting, heuristic evaluation and several usability tests and also participated in wireframing, visual design and prototyping.
Problem
RiseAir website faces significant issues:
Users struggle to find essential information they need.
It's unclear that RiseAir exclusively offers flights within Saskatchewan. New users feel lost on the website.
Existing users face difficulty finding available dates for their desired flights.
Design process
Define goals
To discover how we could enhance RiseAir's value and design based on users’ need we set the following business and users objectives
Business goals
Increase Bookings and Sales
Increase Conversion Rate
Users’ goals
Effortless Navigation to find the required information
Book flights quick and easy
Heuristic evaluation
I conducted Heuristic evaluation to find the issues with the design.
Usability test feedback on current website
After the initial evaluation of the current website, I wanted to understand the problem in more depth. Therefore, I conducted a total of 2 usability test sessions on two tasks.
Since I did not find people who have booked with Riseair before, I decided to looked for people between 18 to 40 years old, who have experienced booking flights online from any airlines.
Task 1: Book a flight
Participant types “Toronto” in the Origin field.
Participant types “Toronto” several times.
Participant tries other words. A drop down shows ZWL-Wollaston.
Participant finds schedules from the menu.
Participant reads the “About Us” section.
Task 2: Book a flight from the available cities
Participant tries the “book now” from the schedule first.
Participant receives the following message.
Participant tries again and finds a flight but it is sold out.
Participant tries to modify the flight by choosing different dates
Participant receives this message again.
Card sorting
One of the significant challenges identified during the usability test was the difficulty in navigating the website.
To redo the navigation we conducted 3 card sorting.
Labels on the current website
Final card sorting
key findings
Some labels are different from what users usually see on Airline websites.So, I replaced them with the more familiar labels. Example: “From” and “To” instead of “Origin” and
Some labels do not mean anything to the users. So, I decided to remove them Example: Do's and Don't and Resources.
Information architecture
Based on the results of the card sorting and by checking some big airlines, I created a new IA for the website.
Persona
Based on the information gathered through usability tests, I defined the user’s problem and their needs by creating a persona and journey map
Gabriel’s journey map
Scenario: Gabriel wants to book a domestic flight to go back home for the reading week.
Wireframes
Usability Test Feedback on mid-fidelity
A total of 3 usability test sessions were conducted to find the issues with the new design.
Pattern library
Colors
Buttons
Typography
Icon
Text field
Final design
Reflection & Learning
Conducting usability test with non-designers is challenging. It should be clearly explained what a prototype is, and how it differs from an actual website. It's important to remind them to think aloud while going through the process.
Having a system design is a must when wireframes are divided among designers to ensure consistency.
Redesigning the landing page requires extensive research since it’s usually the first point of contact users have with the website.
Next Step
Charter and Cargo are two other services offered by RiseAir that are currently only available through phone calls. Introducing an online booking process would significantly boost sales. This streamlined approach would eliminate the need to wait in line, enhancing the overall customer experience.