StartJG, 2012
My UX Journey from Everyday Observations to Designing "Journey Genie" (Dubai Airport Website, 2012)
My Tasks: User Research, UX Design
Case study: Dubai Airport Corporate Website Revamp
Overview
Background
In 2012, Dubai International, one of the busiest international airports, aimed to revamp its corporate website to boost online traffic. The existing website was a traditional information site which consisted of mixed content aimed at various target audiences. As a UX freelancer, I was part of the StartJG Hong Kong team responsible for redesigning the online experience for Dubai Airport.
My Role
I am grateful to have joined the team and would like to thank the senior UX designer, Stephen Pills, for allowing me to design the information architecture and strategic features of the website in its initial stages from November 2012 to December 2012. I collaborated with a UI designer, a front-end developer, and a technical manager during this period.
I handed over the project to Stephen during the detailed visual design phases.
The responsive website and the app were launched globally in 2014.
Challenge
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To boost online traffic, we cannot stick to business audiences and must extend our target audience to public passengers. However, I had faced several challenges.
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No hints on the existing website.
After conducting the UX audit, the information architecture of the previous website had excessive corporate information. Those content audiences were mainly focused on airport business partners rather than the public passengers.
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No domain knowledge.
I am an Asian and did not know the airport business, especially for mid-east airports. What should I do?
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Provide value for target audience to stay.
We should give our target audiences (public passengers) a reason to visit the website and motivate them to stay longer on the site. What information might they seek?
Dubai Airport corporate website (the former version in 2011)
Our high-level goals included:
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Segmenting the information architecture to cater to different audience types: passengers and corporate partners.
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Identifying the primary needs of passengers using the website.
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Implementing innovative engagement features to enhance the user experience.
Research
“To Identify the primary needs of passengers using the website.”
Before starting the project, I had the advantage of staying at Dubai Airport, where I captured over 1,000 photographs depicting passenger behaviours, signage, and store layouts. These images were invaluable assets for my analysis.
Research topic
Research & Findings
Initial Research
Image Content Reviews and Analysis:
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What kinds of things appeared most?
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People
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Items, e.g. signage, shops
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What kind of common activities were taken by users always during their stay at the airport?
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For the items, what were their functions?
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Who did appear in the photo most?
What did I find?
Based on the above findings, I formulated hypotheses to guide further research and design decisions.
Hypothesis
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When passengers have long layovers between flights, their experience can be good if they plan ahead or bad if they don’t.
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For people who were organised person, they would look for tips for long layovers online.
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Imagine how an organised people thought
Advanced Research
What do travellers discuss the most regarding Dubai Airport?
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I conducted an in-depth exploration of various travel forums to pinpoint the most frequently discussed topics and gather insights for the project.
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Most visitors in the forum had asked about what should they do during layover at the airport.
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The other popular topics in the forum were about the way to the airport and meeting friends at the airport.
What was the longest / shortest duration for transit flights?
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According to the flight information from the airport, the shortest transit time could be just 45 minutes, while the longest transit time could be 3 days.
Conclusion
If a passenger has only 45 minutes to make a transit connection, it can be quite stressful. This is mainly due to the need to travel to another terminal for their connecting flight. For example, if a passenger arrives at Terminal 1 and needs to depart from Terminal 3, the total walking distance could take up to 43 minutes. This situation can lead to a lot of anxiety for passengers.
Solution
I remember when I was staying at the airport, I observed many people preferred to wait near the departure gate for a few hours. I understood why they stayed there. They might not know what could be done during transit, or didn’t know the nearest restaurant, or public rest place, or they just didn’t want to spend money.All of these are about way-finding and journey planning. If I could design a tool for them to plan their airport journey before the trip and the site was easy to find staying tips, it could enhance their experience at the airport. This was the design direction of my work.
What is Journey Genie?
Journey Genie is a fingertip feature that enables passengers to customise the information they receive by inputting their specific flight on the Dubai Airport website. It also had an SMS feature to remind the passenger about the gate closing time.The website mirrors the whole passenger’s journey and the information architecture allows our passengers to better navigate the information of airports and its facilities before they arrive.
How to get there?
I have written down the whole travel journey and find the touch point opportunity.
The touch point would be at the travel forum; or online ticketing app; or when the passengers would like to check about tips on security and regulations, they would visit the website.
Since the passengers would visit the website at the early stage of the journey, so I should put the journey planner (Journey Genie) in the obvious position on the site, so that I could keep the passengers coming back to the site.
The Journey Genie should tell the passenger:
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What should be prepared before their flight?
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What would happen after arrival?
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Where they could go for rest or dining if they need to connect flights?
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What kinds of facilities could be used when they are staying at the airport?
I designed the IA according to the passenger’s journey in reality and separated the passenger information from corporate information.
After several discussion with Dubai Airport, Stephen and I agreed to remove the time display, because the airport working team could not guaranteed the security checking time which will make passengers disappointed easily. SMS notification was kept at the latest version of the website.
Impact
The new website was launched in 2014. According to the year report of 2014, 600,000 people visit a month to http://www.dubaiairports.ae/ in 2015