Vueling Destination Exploration - Research Case Study
Individual Research Project
Over a 2 Week Period
Date:
March 2023
The Brief
After getting numerous advertisements for Vueling a low-budget travelling airline, I wanted to conduct a usability test on their mobile website. Over a week period, I planned and conducted a usability test - testing out their flight booking journey focusing on their “explore destination” experience. During this, I planned out the initial pilot test, and sourced testers to produce a research report.
The Problem
During my research, I found mixed results on the web statistic of the mobile experience we found that users are not making purchases after being on their “explore designation” feature.
User Goals
As this is a personal project there was no defined stakeholder or client. However, we can make a broad assumption that Vueling’s goals would be to understand;
what people think that destination exploration is for
Any pain points for users of this section on mobile devices
What changes can they make to encourage people to buy tickets after visiting this page
Research Goals
When creating the initial pilot I set a series of goals in mind that I wanted the user to follow through during the testing and see if the user either achieved that step or not and find out their thoughts and opinions during the journey. Making sure they aligned with the company goals mentioned before.
The key goals set are as followed;
Did the user get and start the experience via the “I want to explore destinations” button prompt?
Did they select a destination from the list and compare the options presented to them?
Were they engaged and the experience met their needs when going through the journey i.e. get to check out and complete booking?
What were their thoughts and opinions on specific, pages, features, or other competitors?
Were there any pain points or frustrations did they encounter, and why?
Pilot Testing
After creating my test script I then found a peer to conduct my pilot to help refine the testing and make changes if needed. The structure of the usability test followed - an icebreaker question, an intro to the test and task scenario, followed by some post-test questions.
I found that when asking the initial icebreaker question on asking about their last favourite holiday - led to them using that destination to search instead of finding a new destination from the list. I changed that to be wholly unrelated to the task given, to make sure the users went through the experience without any other influences.
Finding Participants
Due to the constraints of the project and the short deadline, I opted to source my participants through gorilla testing. This would allow me to get the information and data quicker rather than gather a range of different users to test with. However, did come at the risk of the users we had sourced may not be accurate to the target demographic Vueling is aiming for. I conducted 5 usability tests with my participants ranging within the 24-34 age bracket for 30 minutes each.
Analysing Findings
When going through the recordings, and notes taken during the tests I found that two users didn’t complete the journey and dropped off while three completed it. However, when I look at those who used the got to the destination feature, only two of them started the journey.
Some key observations from the tests;
When going through the process users liked the simple UI and easy interface to navigate through the booking process.
Users expected to see additional options for hotel and activity recommendations as well as car rental options.
Currency defaulted to euro’s so had to leave the journey to convert into pounds.
Locations were limited to destinations in Europe and returned no results for international destinations. Further, when selecting a destination it didn’t provide alternative airports.
Users liked the recommended deals and suggested prices for destinations.
Although a small sample size we can make a few recommendations for the Vueling app to help improve the user experience and make sure users complete their booking journey. Whilst liking to conduct further tests to gain more quantitative data, the qualitative data allowed us to see more about what users thought.
Due to the demographics of the users most were looking for the cheapest flights or deals, and didn’t mind being suggested locations in Europe they haven’t been to before if there was a deal or promotion for it. Opting to pick early flights or slightly earlier days to get most of their money but still wanting airports close to their destination.
Recommendations
Some proposed recommendations would be as follow;
Provide a more clear CTA or Onboarding to give users the option of finding their own destination, or if not they can enter a destination in mind.
State that Vueling is a European Airline so users avoid searching for international flights outside of Vuelings current airlines.
Provide options for alternate currency - as the primary currency is in Euro. However, users in countries that don’t use Euro would have to exit to convert to their native currency e.g. British Pound.
Provide additional information on destinations - places of interest and activities, hotel listings and car rental options.
The outbound trip is selected by default - instead of a round trip so when entering dates the user has to go back and reinput their dates again to get more accurate pricing. As most users would plan around a set period of time, rather than book a single flight (possibility to test further in A/B testing).
Reflection
These changes would potentially allow Vueling to meet with other low-budget airline competitors like Ryanair and Easyjet. Potentially reducing drop-off rates and leading to incomplete checkouts, and users going to other competitor sites to complete their bookings.
Whilst being aware of the small sample size and mostly qualitative data these small changes could potentially lead to a higher quantity of purchases. Increasing profit for the airline. In particular, users from countries that whilst still in Europe but don’t use the Euro as their currency are aware of the prices or if there is an added conversion rate being applied or not leading to sales from those countries in addition.
I’m happy I took the time to find an app to do some usability tests with it, allowing me to practice more with organising and planning usability tests and sourcing participants. Further, learn to develop more soft skills when it comes to UX in particular listening and note-taking in response to user feedback and thoughts.
Thank you for reading this smaller case study looking into conducting usability tests!