Final project: How to make a website user-friendly in just 10 days
At the beginning of December at Ironhack, we started our two final weeks of the Bootcamp. We worked with a stakeholder in pairs and our last project was with Omio.
Information from the stakeholder
Every travel company has been influenced in some way by Covid-19. People cannot travel as much as they used to. Omio is one of these companies that had to change their plans and vision. So far, Omio was focusing mostly on international customers. Unfortunately, in 2020 the number of travelers from abroad had drastically decreased.
From the information we received, Omio divides its users into 3 different groups:
- Local Europeans, who travel within their own countries,
- Non-local Europeans, traveling inside Europe,
- International users, who come from outside Europe.
Our challenge was to improve Omio’s app so it meets each of the target users' needs.
After a lot of brainstorming and our initial interview with the stakeholder, we started doing some research.
What do competitors offer?
At the beginning of the first week, we decided the best place to start with would be checking the competitors and what they have to offer. Pretty quickly we noticed a pattern and features that they had and Omio was missing.
- most of them had a calendar with ticket prices overview,
- it was possible to see flexible booking around the desired dates,
- tickets always had a price breakdown.
Each of the features was available on the competitors’ platforms. The only problem we had was finding them.
Usability test of the existing website
Before moving into the survey, we thought it would be a great idea to see what are the struggles with the existing Omio’s platform for potential users.
We asked 5 of our classmates have live usability tests with us. One of them was using Omio before. We gave them a simple task to book a flight ticket from Berlin to their homes for Christmas. It was supposed to be a return trip where they’d be coming back after the New Year.
What the interviewees told us:
- they couldn’t see which days were the cheapest to travel,
- they didn't see the price breakdown on their tickets,
- some text was difficult to read,
- they couldn't find the filter and sort buttons,
- they didn’t know where and how to change the ticket class,
- there were some mapping mistakes, ex. g. some stations were inaccurate or no longer existed,
- the age groups were difficult to understand since there was no explanation included.
This extremely valuable feedback let us understand some struggles that travelers using Omio may have. What’s more, we could create more accurate survey questions because we started noticing which direction we'd like to go.
Survey gave us some crucial insights.
After a lot of brainstorming, we came up with 21 questions that were going to give us more details about people’s transportation booking habits, booking platform feature preferences, and their travel routines. In just 2 days we managed to gather 76 responses. What we found out, confirmed our previous assumptions but also changed the approach we were planning to take based on stakeholder’s data.
Our survey showed us that:
- 66% of respondents think that price breakdown on their tickets is necessary,
- 72% book multimodal trips several times per year, ex. g. flight tickets with a car,
- 72% said flexible booking around their desired date was important to them,
- 76% want to see what kind of amenities are available on their trip,
- 92% said that seeing ticket prices on the booking calendar was important to them,
- 85% of respondents prefer to use a browser to search for AND book their tickets,
It was valuable information because we were supposed to focus on redesigning the app Omio has.
The most important piece of information we received from our research was that:
This confirmed that Omio has to focus more on national customers since this is the biggest target group in times where borders can be closed anytime.
Do travelers differ from each other?
We analyzed all the data we received from the stakeholder, our research results and we compared them. Our conclusion was quite simple. No matter where the travelers are coming from, they are looking for exactly the same.
Each of them is looking for accurate search results, competitive prices, and detailed information. As designers, we can only make it easier for them to find the information. We have no influence on mapping, APIs, algorithms. In our opinion, the How Might We statement we got with our challenge overview was no longer accurate. We created a new one where we focused on improving the desktop booking process for the users so they come back in the future. We believed that a great user experience would let them create a profile and eventually download the app.
Meet Anna, our User Persona
User Persona should reflect people who took part in our research. Anna is the closest we could come up with. She’s in her 30s, used to travel abroad but due to Covid, she’s forced to book only national trips.
Anna is planning to visit her friend in Munich. She will be traveling with her 2-year-old daughter on a train. Usually, she books with Deutsche Bahn but this time she wants to check some other options. She’s tired of having different profiles on different platforms and is looking for a provider that will have all the options available.
Redesign- how did we do it?
Our user flow is very simple. Anna searches for a train trip from Berlin Bhf to Munich Hbf. She sees on top of the search area she can easily navigate between different means of transport available on the Omio platform. Scrolling down the page, she has a lot of different trip options organized in clean and easy to read cards.
She adds two passengers (herself and an infant kid). She can easily check the policy for each age group while hovering over the info icons that we included in the new design. She wants to travel on January 11th but thanks to the new feature- the calendar with price overview- she notices January 12th is much cheaper and decides to choose this date.
After choosing the right trip and dates, Anna goes to search results. She can scroll down and see possible outbound connections. To make everything much smoother, she can sort the results or even better to filter them. She can easily find the filter button that now is bigger and darker. In the original design, there was only an outline button that was disappearing between all the search results. It was very important for us to make this site more accessible and user-friendly.
Secondly, we changed the arrival and departure time slots into sliders that give users a bigger flexibility of choice. All of the interviewees were complaining this part of the site was very difficult to navigate. Everything was scrolling up when the user was checking the results. It made it very confusing and testers were getting lost. We proposed to keep the description area stuck to the top of the screen. The users can easily see what and when they are choosing. Every result has an extra line with amenities available on the train, bus, or plane.
The last part we focused on was the ticket options page. Two main complaints we heard from the users were about the class choice. Omio so far had a very descriptive card where you could change the class or fare. This differed from what their app had. We decided to combined our ideas with the existing solution from the app. We designed buttons that have the names of the classes. While hovering on each of them, the user can see the description and policy of every fare and class. To change them, he just has to click on one of them.
The second complaint was the lack of price breakdown on the ticket. In the original design, users couldn’t see how much they need to pay for each person. This was a very useful hint one of our classmates gave us. She usually travelers with her little daughter and knows how much she has to pay for her. On Omio’s platform, this information was unavailable. This was confusing for the users. The new design has a very clear and visible price overview.
The final prototype
After many days of researching and redesigning Omio’s website, we added some missing features and we worked on improving the existing user interface. Thanks to testing it, we know that previous Omio’s users found it more user-friendly and more accessible. The results of our work can be found below.
Next steps
Last Friday we presented the results of our two weeks work to our cohort. Our next goal is to present it to our stakeholders and try to convince them based on our research results that the features we implemented are necessary. Secondly, since we had only 10 days to redesign the platform, we’d like to create a mobile version of this design, as well as include these features in the Omio App.
The End
It is amazing how much a person can learn in just 9 weeks. In the past, we needed 5 years at the universities, years of gaining experience. Now, thanks to boot camps and a lot of hard work we can cover so much material in such a short time. I really believe recruiters and companies underestimate that. The last 3 months taught me so much about design, user research, design thinking, all the processes involved, and especially myself. I’m definitely more confident and ready for the upcoming future. I proved to myself I can achieve all of my goals. I wouldn’t write this without my incredible classmates from Ironhack and of course without the support from our amazing teachers (Milan, Erica, Rafa, and Michael). As well as without my teammate from the Omio project. Nicole, it was an absolute pleasure to work with you and I hope that wasn’t the last time.
