Usability Evaluation and Site Redesign Challenge: KAYAK
For the third challenge of the Ironhack’s pre-work, the objective was to create a case study putting ourselves in the shoes of a specific consumer target and identify areas of improvement of a travel application of our selection.
I compared the Kayak, Tripadvisor and Skyscanner apps, and and I used the 10 Nielsen principles to perform heuristic evaluation of the usability of the 3 applications, in my case I went with KAYAK.
We also had to follow certain steps in order to really understand the perspective of this consumer target, which in this case I chose:
Worldtrotter, Backpacker — 18–38 y/o (1)
You’ve decided to finally go visit that wonder that has been sitting in your dreams for a long time now. Yo don’t have a long time to plan but also you don’t need it. You’ll be traveling in 6 months and are open to almost any possibility but have a budget constraint. You are price-cautious and prefer experiences where you have a chance to meet people and make acquaintances to enjoy the wonder together. You are not picky and you can accommodate the most affordable, adventurous, genuine experience.
We also had to pick a destination for our Worldtrotter and research everything needed for the trip, this was the result:
· Airport to destination: London Stansted Airport
· Currency and exchange from your own currency: 1 GBP = 1.16 EU
· Medical needs: vaccination, visa, etc.: Conditions of entry into United Kingdom from Spain
- 10-day mandatory self-quarantine
- Negative COVID-19 test issued at most 3 days before arrival
- Travellers can choose to pay for a private COVID-19 test. The earliest you can take the test while in quarantine is 5 full days after you left a place not on the travel corridor list
- Before travelling, travellers must book and pay for a travel test package, which will include COVID-19 tests to be taken on day 2 and on day 8 of your quarantine
- Passenger Locator Form (PLF) required
· Wardrobe recommendations: get your coat!
· Days needed to visit attraction: 5 days.
Testing
Interviewed 3 travelers meeting the Worldtrotter type described above.
Used the 5-seconds test to evaluate the look and feel of the app. Here are the questions I asked them:
· What did you see?
· What can this app do for you?
· Do you know which app this is?
· What do you think about the design?
This were some of the comments I got from the interviewed:
- Knew it and previously use it
- They all identified the 3 icons on top: plane, hotel and car.
- The 3 of them told me that at first sight they only could know that it was kayak cause they used it before, because their was no logo just white text.
- Easy to use
Insights
After this test, I asked each of them to realize the 3 tasks for me in the app, and with their feedback and identified the main issues:
So taking in consideration the main issues, I propose simple changes that from my perspective will improve the user experience.
- In the case of the first view of the app or homepage, I wanted to Include entire logo instep of only text for the title, add packages options icons to reduce the number of clicks, and stand out the CTA button that looks like a search box.
2. In the case of the flight search, when selecting your option, user should be able to get all done within the app, will include the option to buy inside as main option and leave the redirect to other platforms as secondary options, if the customer has an account will be able to buy in one click if not will create the account to get the purchase done. Also, will add the currency option for our international backpackers.
The idea is to have the “Purchase” option in step of just “See offer” and “Reserve” both of which redirect you to other platforms. And this will lead you to be able to fill the form either to buy the ticket if you already own and account, or Sign up to buy it.
3. To search for transportation to rent, I propose to clarify top options: “ same store” — “other store” with “same pick & drop” — “drop in other”, include the currency option at search view. Also, having the filters down the screen could be confusing, so we relocate it on top and last but not least, in the select offer view add the pay in app not kayak web site:
4. Finally for the lodging option, I also moved the maps and filter to the top, re used the filter button used in the flight option to clarify what user picked.
As a consumer I also consider that if filter is entered by the user announcements should not be part of the search, for example in this case our user has a budget and the announcement clearly doesn’t meet our traveler criteria, so I propose to remove the announcement and leave the “sign up to discover more offers” button.
Learnings
- To redesign a product which is already working according to the interviewees, was definitely challenging.
- Interviewing is a source of inspiration, everybody reacts in a different way using an app and it is very important to focus on the important things from the user type perspective.
- For this particular case, Kayak App has made great changes but there is always room for improvements as trends and experiences are constantly evolving and so does the requirements from our users, we gotta keep it up!
