Overview
Feature testing is a fundamental step of the design process. This article displays an example of usability testing for EasyJet.
MY ROLE
Research planning and execution, prototyping, data analysis
Duration: June 2019
Research focus
EasyJet was evaluating to launch a new fares family that would impact search results, ancillaries up-sell and seat selection of the app booking flow.
Our design team proposed two different solutions to display the new fares and several changes on ancillaries and seat selection in order to match the new booking flow requirements.
This project displays how we tested and compared different design solutions with a usability test.
1. Planning
Research planning is the most important phase of research. A good research plan helps guiding the entire process, addressing the gaps in our knowledge as well as giving visibility to stakeholders and team members.
A good way to summarize the planning is through a research draft. This document is a live diary of the project and ensures that everyone is on the same page. This should define:
- Objectives and research questions
- Research methods
- Recruitment
- Documentation: screeners and scripts
- Timeline
- Budget
2. Method
For this research, we wanted the most naturalistic observations and test environment possible. Then, has been set a remote-non moderate usability test on usertesting.com with high-fidelity Axure prototypes.
Participants were recruited and selected through the usertesting.com panel and subdivided into two groups. For each of them has been administered the following test structure:
- Intro/Scenario: sets a realistic scene/context for the tester, e.g. “Imagine you are traveling….”
- Select a Target Fare: this task was used to compare the designs solutions under assessment.
- Understand services selected: participants explained what services were included in the fare selected. This helped to evaluate how much they understood of their choice.
- Add Extra Bag and Select a seat: are participants choosing seats and bags coherently with the fare selected?
- Post-Test Questionnaire: final questions to capture at high-level the participants’ experience during the test.
3. Analysis
Data analysis is the conclusive step of a research where organizational and analytical skills play essential role in answering the research questions, and prove or disprove our hypotheses.
The first data processing step for this research was to review participants’ footage and code all pertinent parts.
Then, annotations have been systematically organized in a spreadsheet against the research questions. This was useful to highlight behavioral patterns, usability issues and validate our initial hypothesis.
4. Findings
We didn’t find any specific blocker on the two solutions tested. Both designs performed equally well, even though we got insights that the vertical stack might have the advantage of a clearer comparison among fares. That could facilitate choices based on services rather than the lowest price.
Moreover, we noticed interaction issues on the seat map and misunderstandings of included service in the selected fares, which were not considered in the initial research scope.
