Usability evaluation and redesign on Kayak application
From researchs, usability testing to redesign wireframes
The group of five friends have been talking about this trip together for a while and they all have been saving money and planning the visits for the last eight months. Everyone agree now on the dates, from the 7 to the 13 of august, they are going to Rome to see the Colosseum and spend as much time together as possible.There is no really timing or schedule but they want to do a lot of things. The program has been voted 👌🏻 :
Day 1. arriving at Fiumicino airport, in the morning taking the Leonardo Express to go in Rome center, check in the chosen Airbnb, then chilling around the neighborhood looking for typic Italian grocery.
Day 2. In Rione Monti neighborhood to visit the Colosseum 12€ then spent the night in Santa Maria dei Monti.
Day 3. Hanging out in Trastevere pizza in hand.
Day 4. In the Centro Storico going through the Piazza Navona looking for pasta and visiting the Pantheon and make a wish in the Fontana di Trevi.
Day 5. In the North of Rome, shopping in Piazza di Spagna, walks in the Villa Borghese Park.
Day 6. Visiting The Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel and eat lots of ice cream.
Day 7. Check out of the Airbnb and Leaving Rome as late as possible to return to voted favorite place by the 5 friends, to spend the last day.
Regarding the group organisation Full Airbnb logement in the center of Rome for 6 nights /5 persons (850€), visiting the well expected Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel and other museums (50€), transportations metro and other (50€), eating in quaint restaurants, drinking wine and bought italian typical grocery (250€) : each groups’ member end up around 500€ budget for the week flight exclued.
After Benchmarking three applications (Kayak, SkyScanner and Trip Advisor) using Jakob Nielsen 10 Heuristics. I choose KAYAK to pursue this challenge. My users wants to travel all in the same flight, a direct one since it’s from Paris to Rome and they want to optimize the time spent together, and luggages addition for the Dolce Vita wardrobe and the gift/souvenirs shopping. Kayak provides clear settings of the previously explained criterias, on the first page.
I tested KAYAK application, with two types of usability evaluation ; a remote 5 second test and shadowing interviews.
I made five type users take the 5 second test using the usability ub application. My questions were : what did you saw, what can it do for you and where could you search for a flight ?
They all seem to memorized the visual components ; 3 icones (especially the plane) and the map. On the second question some divergences started to emerge. Half said “found/book transport facilities” other half “to choose a destination” and last person “book different services for a trip”. However the last question, on the question “where can you search for a flight”. One person couldn’t remember, another “right down” another “top left” while two others said in the search bar.
To summarize ; all the users clearly saw the plane icone and the map, deduced that the application provided transports features (whether booking facility or found an itinerary) but weren’t able to strongly affirm where to tap to search the flight.
Then I conducted a shadowing test on three users. My users task was the following one : Book the cheapest flight for 5 persons, direct Paris-Rome back and forth, without from the 7th of august the earlier possible to the 13rd of august the later possible.
Watching my users complete the task, made me aware of some friction areas keeping the customer unhappy-annoyed.
- on the landing page, users tap on the airplane icon instead of the “find a flight” search bar
- on the Flights menu, when selected the dates, one user selected the same date back and forth without noticing and went all the way through the purchase with this mistake, no one got the priced color code (but the task didn’t really ask for it)
- on the options from the flights menu, my users were confused by the bags sections (didn’t understand what was free or not, then if adding some find out that it later alternate the price results on the flights) and one user left out the last option “any stops” which was a task requirement
- on the next page, they all were a bit overwhelmed by the informations everywhere. Between the notifications, the ads and the button “cheaper results as low as 128€ are hidden by filters, show” that erased filters and don’t explain which one once tapped on, my users seems to struggle to find the filters settings (two of them scroll back and forth to found the best timetable)
- once my users selected the correct tickets, there was a confusion and irritation on the change of website
To fix the pain points resulting of the interviews highlighted above, I decided to make a few changes on buttons design and wireframes.
1. I changed buttons of the landing page to prevent users from tapping on the plan.
I made two designs and tested it on three people to find the more intuitive one. Iteration 2 wone.
2. For the dates selection in the flights menu, I tried to attract user’s attention on the dates by changing the phrasing and the font size. After testing, iteration 1 wone.
3. The options from the flights menu are four and light, and some users seems give up before the end of the list. I would rearrange them by cancelling the bag section (who is confusing to the user and sometimes provides missguided pricing later) this also might make the “any stops” section more easily used by the user.
4. On the page with flight propositions, irrelevant information needs to be erased or explained.
A rearrangement of filters on the scroll down menu might also help the user to see more clearly what’s important. For example, when the user already selects the “stops” options on the first page, the block doesn’t need to appear first. I would put the Price and Time block first as they seem to be the most wanted info of the users.
5. During the interviews my users were confused and annoyed by the change of website after they found their flights on Kayak. Which makes me think about the number one usability heuristic “Designs should keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate, timely feedback”. So here a notification explaining what’s going to happen needs to be created to avoid users’ irritation.
During this challenge I learned that there are quite a lot of tools that can be used to make an applications’ audit. I enjoyed preparing my questions for the 5sec test, and learned that words need to be chosen carefully in order to get interesting information. I rephrase the questions after the first person answers them all. Funny to apply the test/iterate steps on my interview guide as well.
I was really interested by and learn a lot out of the usability heuristics. Which feel like the 10 principles of good design translate in the 10 rules to good audit.
I also learned that an application even famous and used by tons of people like Kayak can have friction areas and pain points. All the small pain points that irritated my interviewed users didn’t prevent them from completing their task but it surely made them annoyed, which is not beneficial to the company. This made me understand that even when an app is already successful there is always a way to improve the user experience even if it’s just changing phrasing or buttons design.
