Ironhack’s Prework: Usability Evaluation and Site Redesign — Challenge 3
This is my last Ironhack’s Prework challenge! This time I will have to evaluate the usability of travel apps based on a certain user scenario, find the pain points and redesign them so that the user experience is more fluid and pleasant.
Challenge background
The scope of this third and final challenge will be to compare the usability of 4 travel organization platforms, based on the scenario of a traveler who wants to visit El Cairo, Egypt. Then, I will have to evaluate which of the platforms is the best option for the scenario and detect the main friction areas and prioritize pain points. Finally, I will propose changes in order to fix the pain points through an interactive prototype.
Scenario
For this challenge I have chosen the following scenario:
1) User Type
Young group 20–40 y/o (4 people)
A group of friends have decided to invest and spend some quality time together. They are planning the trip one year in advance to really make it happen and accommodate everybody’s schedules and needs. They’d like to share as much time together and plan for a lot of fun. They’re interested in a mix of culture and leisure. They have all saved for the last year for the trip so, while you’re still price-conscious this is the opportunity to spoil themselves.
2) Research
Here is some important information about the destination:
- Airport: Cairo International Airport.
- Currency: Egyptian pounds (1€ = 18,65 EGP).
- Passport: With minimum 6-month validity left.
- Duration: with minimum 6-month validity left.
3) Benchmark evaluation
I compared the following travelling apps: Kayak, Skyscanner, Hopper and TripAdvisor by conducting a Usability Heuristics evaluation with Nielsen’s Principles to identify which one matches the best with my user type.
And the winner is Hopper! The Hopper interface is aimed at a young audience, which seeks to make group trips at the best price.
Testing
In this phase, I’ve selected 3 users that match the challenge scenario and I interviewed them about travel platforms. Later, I required them to the next things two things with Hopper mobile app:
- A five-seconds test on the main screen.
- Create a trip with a few friends to El Cairo.
After the tests with the 3 users, I have found the following common insights:
- Screen 1: In the 5-minutes test the users find strange the carrot icon with 10$ available, which is an access to exchangeable points of the platform.
- Screen 2: Users had no problem to deal with this part.
- Screen 3: Users had no problem to deal with this part.
- Screen 4: Users find this screen very saturated with information and get hard for them to know where to click to continue with the process. Although they like the “Watch with your travel buddy” feature.
- Screen 5: Users find confusing the fact that they can “freeze” the price of the hotel and the carrot icon again.
Redesign
After detecting all pain-points of the user flow, I redesigned said pain-points to make a User Experience more fluid:
Key Learnings
- The Usability Heuristics evaluation it’s a great method to analyze websites and platforms.
- A 5-minutes test it’s key in order to evaluate if a design it’s understandable for a user.
