Project Overview
Brief
This case study was completed as part of the UX Tree mentorship and the brief was pre-defined as:
Identify and validate a UX problem in an existing app or website and design a suitable solution for the chosen target audience.
I identified and choose: Improving Ryanair's inflight ordering app feature.
Role
UX / UI Designer User research, analysis and prototyping.
Tools Figma and Adobe Illustrator
Duration February 2024 - May 2024
Mentor Elizabeth Burgess - UX Manager Deloitte
UX Tree Mentorship Award: Best Research
Design Process: Double Diamond
Decide
For my case study, I chose Ryanair's inflight menu app feature because it presents a significant opportunity for UX improvement. This decision stems from a recent flight where I struggled with placing an inflight order through their app, recognising the difficulty of the inflight menu selection, which offers both challenges and opportunities to enhance user interaction.
My goal is to explore the intricacies of inflight menu services, analysing their current UX strategies to identify effective practices and areas needing careful attention. By studying the processes of other inflight services and conducting thorough research, I aim to gather valuable insights that will inform and elevate the user experience in my own designs.
Discover / Define Overview
Here's an overview of research methods conducted, key insights and defining the problem.
Discover: Competitor Analysis
I analysed one indirect and two direct competitors. Through competitor analysis, I've found strengths and weaknesses in competitors' user experience, which you can see highlighted below in more detail.
Discover: Online Survey
I posted my survey on my Instagram stories and sent to friends and I had a total of 21 respondents and here are the key figures from the Survey.
Note that these are from Non app inflight purchases:
Only 45% are satisfied with inflight purchasing
While 76% have never ordered food/duty free via an airline app.
Finally 71% said they would use it if they knew they’d get priority service.
Only 45% are satisfied with inflight purchasing
While 76% have never ordered food/duty free via an airline app.
Finally 71% said they would use it if they knew they’d get priority service.
Questions relating specifically to Ryanair's inflight purchasing app feature: 40% were dissatisfied by RyanAir service
While another 40% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied Only 20% were satisfied
While another 40% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied Only 20% were satisfied
Discover: Heuristic Analysis - Homepage
I conducted a Heuristic analysis on Ryanair's Inflight magazine feature based on Jacob Nielsen 10 usability heuristics, over the next few slides I've highlighted the main findings.
Discover: Heuristic Analysis - Product Selection
Discover: Heuristic Analysis - Wording
Discover: Heuristic Analysis - Cart
Discover: Heuristic Analysis - Order Confirmation
Discover: Usability Testing
For this I had to recreate the Ryanair inflight magazine app feature (using screenshots) as it's only active once inflight. Participants were asked to participate in usability testing using the existing Ryanair inflight magazine. The scenario was to order a Meal Deal (Barilla Bolognese, Heineken and Twix) and once in cart to add an additional coffee to the order before placing. Three participants were recruited for this, one had previously used the feature while the remaining two had not.
Discover: Usability Testing Key Insights
After I conducted the usability test, I gathered the insights and created an affinity diagram, grouping notes by similarity and naming each groups. Below I've highlighted the key insights learned.
Discover: Overall Research Key Insights & Requirements
Based on my research findings I created these requirements for moving forward.
Define: User Persona
Define: Storyboard
I created a storyboard to provide additional context for myself and stakeholders. This technique tells the story quickly, is easily understood and remembered at first glance.
Define: Customer Journey Map
For my customer journey map I mapped out what the customer experiences as they interact with the Ryanair inflight purchasing app feature based on my research. I highlighted aspects of the journey that need to be fixed as a priority and used smily faces to represent the over riding emotion occurred at each step.
Define: Empathy Map
Define: Problem Statement
Develop: Overview
I took a very iterative approach to developing the app feature, this was done through thorough extensive usability testing and multiple prototype iterations.
Develop: Paper Prototype
Initially I sketched up a paper prototype to get my ideas down on paper and test them quickly with users.
Develop: Paper Prototype Usability Tests
Develop: Low Fidelity Prototype
Based on my initial usability test insights, I developed a low fidelity prototype and again performed usability tests.
Develop: Low Fidelity Prototype Usability Tests
Develop: Ryanair Branding
Before moving to a high fidelity prototype I researched Ryanair's branding to find the correct typeface and colours. Additionally I created a new Ryanair yellow that's 35% opacity of their current yellow.
Develop: High Fidelity Prototype
I incorporated Ryanair's branding and insights from previous usability test to create the high fidelity prototype and again preformed usability tests with it.
Usability Test Results: High Fidelity Prototype
Develop: A/B Testing
I conducted A/B testing on different upselling meal deal techniques to find the most suitable option based on usability.
Deliver: Final High Fidelity Prototype Flow
Finally with all my insights gained throughout usability tests, here is my final iteration. Over the next few slides you will see the app flow, an interactive prototype, a walk-through and final usability testing results.
Deliver: Final High Fidelity Prototype
Deliver: Final High Fidelity Prototype Walk-through
Deliver: Final Usability Tests
Conclusion:
Main learnings:
I learned a new valuable research technique - Jacob Nielsens 10 heuristics.
I learned the importance of usability testing, I always got rich insights from these.
And finally I learned a lot about myself and how I work. My strengths and weaknesses.
What I would do differently:
In hindsight I would have created a prioritisation matrix, it’s something I will be definitely bringing into future projects.