Pan am Airlines
Role
UX Designer
Timeline
1 week
Tools
Figma, Adobe XD
Project Overview
Pan American Airways wants to make a comeback into the travel industry with an all new, responsive website. They wish to offer a streamlined booking experience and refresh their original brand for a more modern appeal. To help provide extra convenience to customers, they hope to implement a live notification system and offer rewards to loyal passengers.
Challenges
Differentiate the brand from other major competitors
Keep customers informed about changes to their flight
Discover ways in which to inspire loyalty from customers
Solutions
Redevelop a brand through a responsive e-commerce platform
Implement real-time notifications for flight changes
Offer a convenient and noteworthy experience for booking travel
RESEARCH
In order to gain a better understanding I conducted market research, user interviews and assessed competitor offerings.
Market Research
In conducting market research I was able to discover how people decide to book and what is most important to them while searching for a flight.
Discover what people value in a booking experience
Find out how people stay informed about their flight
Discover what inspires brand loyalty
Competitive Analysis
I took a look at the top competitors in the travel industry to gain more insight about the qualities of their brands, and to dive deeper into the build of their websites. This process better informed my future design decisions.
User Interviews
I decided to interview 5 participants aged 25-30 who have all previously booked travel online in the past two years. I found that most participants completed booking online by themselves, and believed the process was easy. All participants thought that some type of notification system would help them stay informed about their flight. 4 out of 5 participants experienced not being aware of a delay or other change until they arrived at the airport. Most participants were also involved in a rewards program for being a frequent flyer.
Key Takeaways
Analyzing the competitors gave me a quick look into the essentials of a travel booking website. My interactions within these sites helped me form my own user flows for Pan Am. When speaking with travelers, I learned that the need for some kind of real-time notification system proved to be useful, as all of them had been caught off guard at the airport before. I decided to focus on incorporating this aspect later on in my design.
DEFINE AND IDEATE
To begin defining the problem, I developed a persona, discovered some useful product features, built a sitemap, and created a user flow.
User Persona
Meet Veronica, an Interior Designer, when she's not working she loves to travel at various destinations. After booking with quite a few different airlines, Veronica would like to experience something more unique.
Empathy Map
I created an empathy map to synthesize the findings from the interviews. I used this tool to uncover user’s insights to define their needs.
Project Goals
I combined the business goal that the brand wants to achieve, the user’s goal that we found out from the research, and mutual goals.
Sitemap
To kick off the design, I first mapped out the entire site structure and determined the scope of design for this project.
User Flow
I crafted a user flow based on the booking process, from searching for flights online to viewing the final confirmation page after purchasing.
Task Flow
I created a task flow to demonstrate how users would navigate the website to book a flight. This helps me to decide on key screens to make for the website.
Key Takeaways
Creating a persona helped me empathize with users in order to better formulate a solution to their problems. I could then contribute these solutions to my potential website features, and begin working on my ideas for the design through wire framing
BRANDING AND UI
Within the next iteration, I focused on creating branding and UI elements for the final visual design.
Mood Board
I collected some imagery from Pinterest that and found that more muted colors and simple, easy to read type faces made the most sense for this brand.
Style Guide
Since this is considered a refresh for a previously established brand, I decided to work with Pan Am's new logo Pairing the color scheme, typography, and various UI elements allowed me to bring them forward into the modern era.
Key Takeaways
The final design helped me consider how to bring together old and new concepts to reform a brand. I also learned how to keep consistency between different pages of a website in order to build the whole visual.
USABILITY TEST
After forming a clear picture of the site structure and flow between pages, I was ready to test for usability with my prototype.
Wireframes
I decided to focus on creating mid-fidelity wire frames to explore my ideas before finalizing the site design. I followed my user flows to create an outline for the amount of pages I would need. Then, I went on to test these pages in the first version of my prototype.
Prototype
I conducted a usability test on my wire framed screens with 5 participants. While observing their actions, I gave the participants tasks to complete. Overall, participants were able to complete each task with relative ease. Some issues were found such as more clarity in baggage and fare information.
UI Design
Applying the UI design made me think about showcasing the importance of text,
iconography, images, and white space within a page.
Affinity Map
Next, I created an affinity map for the common insights gained from my test participants. Some things I took into consideration for the final design included changing the rewards program section, boarding and check-in details.
Key Takeaways
Testing with my wire frames gave me the flexibility to quickly incorporate any changes needed to the design. I learned how to remotely conduct a usability test and got more comfortable with letting participants lead the way after giving them tasks. The affinity map helped me summarize their thoughts into one space, and further guided me on how to improve my design.
NEXT STEPS
REFLECTION
In the end, I believe I have captured the essence of the Pan American experience through my modern take on their website design. They will be providing extended value to their customers through live flight notifications and a rewards program.
If I had more time, I would explore ways to easily compare flights within the booking process, and also include methods for creating a vacation agenda.
Designing for Pan Am allowed me to discover more about the travel industry and what could offer convenience for travelers.