YAP MAY HON

About the project
AirAsia is a low-cost airline company operating domestically and internationally from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As their digital transformation started in 2018, the website was set to be revamped to offer our guests a better wholesome travel services.

My role in this project was to redesign the homepage to include direct services from our partnering business and improve the search engine feature.

Background
The homepage is the most sought after space and every week, new marketing banners and eDMs are created by the web team to promote low fares. This effort takes up 40-60% of each web designer’s time in a week as fares can change depending on the sales performance of the destination. Besides the weekly routine, there are also online campaigns that would require microsites, digital ads (minimum 14 sizes) and updating the digital kiosks etc.. including translation for each country.

Research
Together with our test manager and data analyst, I was able to pinpoint some insightful information.

via FullStory
Used to monitor our guest’s digital experience from the homepage to payment or any point of drop off
- Most users go back and forth between the homepage and booking engine (this behaviour is typical when user is trying to compare day vs. flight vs. fares)
- Most users don’t scroll down past the promotional banners

via Optimizely
Used to run A/B tests on specific areas (simple UI enhancements or replacing entire features)
- Red CTA buttons has a higher click-rate than other colour
- Low fare calendar reduced the navigation between homepage and booking engine proving that it is useful when want to make immediate comparisons between flights
- Adding quick links improved traffic to our partner’s sites and increased their conversion

via market research
Used to list and compare useful features between other travel sites
- Most low-cost airlines had low fare calendars
- Selecting destinations using map is not ideal (JetBlue made their map feature less prominent after a few months of launching and momondo moved theirs to the bottom of the page)

User interview
In order to gain more knowledge on the user’s perspective, other members of the UX team and I sought for frequent flyers to interview. Our frequent flyers consisted of employees and random guests. As our employees frequently fly with us and are the first to get feedback from their family and friends, we wanted to hear their view on the current homepage.

Here is some of the feedbacks that needs attention.

Conclusion
Through these findings, I listed down the most necessary areas to improve:
- create a design material library to update the UI design guide and build reusable components to reduce development efforts
- redesign following a grid system so that it’s responsive for all device size
- offer personalised banners targeting cheapest flight rates to suggested/nearby destinations
- offer deals from partnering travel businesses to compliment their trip
- improve search engine design for better customer experience
- provide a low fare calendar to improve conversion

Another area to improve was through the use of eDMs (electronics Direct Mail), we could
- send trigger emails to follow up on our guests after they drop off
- send survey emails to guests after a flight / trip
- send reminder emails to purchase ancillary items (food, baggage, travel insurance, duty free items etc..)

Design & Tools
Figma & Photoshop

Launch results

Day 1 - 15% of the website’s traffic was redirected to the new homepage. There was no significant increase in performance and conversion, nor was there any drop.

Day 3 - 30% of the website’s traffic was redirected to the new homepage. Increase in conversion by 2% compared to the old homepage.

Day 4 - At the start of the day, 50% of the website’s traffic was redirected to the new homepage. Conversion increased by 5% compared to the old homepage. Positive conversion rate gave the project team confidence to redirect 100% of the traffic to the new homepage.