Challenge 3: Usability Evaluation and Site Redesign
Objectives
Audit and redesign a travel booking app through usability test and evaluation.
Booking Scenario
Kam and her partner decide to go to a special place next summer. They realize they have both saved enough for the tickets and are planning to save as much as possible for the next 6 months to do this trip. They want to be efficient and have everything they need organized to enjoy at 100% while there.
Personas
Empathize
Benchmarking
I chose to evaluate “Trip Advisor” since it’s the app that all of my participants had used for their trips.
Testing
I did a 2-minute usability test to all 5 users. They all knew about the app and had used it at least once, either on their phones or through a web version.
After 2 minutes using the app I asked the following questions:
What is the name of this app?
5/5 recognized the app’s name
What do you usually use it for?
4/5 said to book hotels and tickets
Where is the search option?
5/5 Remembered
Which element do you use to filter?
5/5 The icons
I noticed that every search made by the users they filtered by price, which makes sense since in the previous survey resulta showed that at least 60% of the users try to keep their trips within a budget.
Due to COVID-19, we weren’t able to make a real search of tickets, but 100% of the participants said that they usually search for direct flights to take advantage of the days off.
One thing I noticed in their interactions was that 40% of the users had trouble finding the filter, this lead us to the pain point.
Pain Point
Even when 60% of participants could find without a problem the filter options, the remaining 40% were intuitively looking for it at the top of the navigation.
They agreed that to have it on top of the results was a little annoying for them because they felt it gets lost or that if disrupts their navigation.
Redesign
Taking into account that it is just a minimum edition to the interface I chose to try it and see if most of the users would feel comfortable with this change.
After creating a prototype of a couple of the screens I asked for their impressions and 80% said that the filter option makes more sense to the at the top and they feel it actually simplified the process. The other 20% said that it wasn’t something that bothered them, but that it was still intuitive for them.
Key Learning
I must say that it was a challenge to find something to redesign in this app. At first glance, I felt pretty comfortable using it and even though I personally think that user interface looks a little bit outdated, the user experience was performing really good.
It’s easy and natural to assume that you are the user and base your conclusions on your own thoughts and experiences. But when you break out of that box and evaluate the interviews and screen tests you realize that even if it is small there’s something that could make a great difference in this journey.