Air Lux booking experience

To create a user focused solution, I began with research to understand the context, followed by an analysis phase to define the problem. This would help me create a hypothesis for the solution that I could then design, prototype, and test.

Airlines excelled at helping users find suitable flights, by featuring search modules on homepages, and allowing users to edit the search criteria throughout the search. However problems persisted with pricing - a decisive factor in the completion of bookings:

• Drip pricing substantially increased the initial price, making users feel out of control.
  
• There was a notable difference in what users required, and the services that airlines pushed.
  

Users felt frustrated at two points of the booking journey:

1. Fare selection - fare options were complicated, not clear and at times deceptive.
   
2. Additional services - users often wanted just basic essentials, but were overwhelmed by the airlines attempts to upsell.
   

Optional seat selection

A key takeaway from research was that 70.6% of respondents would not pay for a seat preference - despite 76.5% having a preference.

Air Lux would reverse the trend of forcing extra steps to upsell seat upgrades. Instead, it would highlight the automatically assigned free seat, and then offer the chance to change the seat for those edge cases.

Giving users control over progress and costs

To help users stay in control, an itinerary module would be featured throughout the booking journey to counter existing frustrations. With the two main aims being:

1. To act as a progress marker, helping guide users through the process and feel under control at all times.
   
2. To allow users to see a clear breakdown of their trip, customisations, and the total cost throughout.
   

Flexible luggage options

As a common convention, airlines would offer different fare bundles and include a list of benefits; with the visual design emphasising more expensive packages.

Users often felt out of control, whether it was because it was difficult to understand what was included, because they only wanted select parts of the bundle, or because of the deceptive design patterns that prioritised upselling.

Whilst users had different pain points and aims, a common denominator was that they wanted to keep costs low and select a luggage option most appropriate to them - 95% of survey respondents paid for some form of luggage.

The Air Lux solution would simplify the decision making process by unbundling the options to give users full control over their specific luggage needs. They would be able to pick and choose the exact items, for each passenger, and for each flight if necessary.