Propose a New Design for AMEX Travel Search Engine

Role: UX Researcher

Project: Coursera Online Course

Timeline: Two Weeks

Platform: AMEX Travel Website (booking flights, hotels, cars, and cruisers)

Research Phases

Phase 1: Usability Testing (Evaluating the severity of usability issues via Nielsen Heuristic principles)

Phase 2: Preference Testing

Usability Testing

Research Questions

1. Whether experienced users of online travel booking sites can plan their trip with AMEX Travel site.

2. What problems users encounter when trying to use the site to plan their trips.

Participants and Diversity Criteria

Participants

- Being an experienced user of online travel booking sites

- Buying a ticket online in the past year

- Not using the AMEX Travel site before

Diversity criteria ( two dimensions)

- Flight preferences (standards vs. complex accommodations)

- Frequency of online booking (1-3 vs. 4 and above trip per year)

7 participants were selected based on the criteria.

Stages of Test Plan

1- Introduction to the test and consent form

2- Pre-test interview

3- Three main tasks (Use logging sheet)

4- Follow up (Debriefing issues)

5- Post-survey (SUS)

Task Sheet Example

Binary Table

Results and Recommendations (based on Nielsen Heuristic principles)

Preference Testing

Research Questions

1. Why experienced users of online travel booking sites prefer one version over the other one.

2. Whether a new survey can successfully speak to participants’ perceptions of the experience and help researchers to understand the differences between the two proposed designs.

Participants

- Medium sample (20 subjects)

- Remote within-subjects method

- Users who:

1) do not use the AMEX Travel site before

2) be an experienced user of online travel booking sites

Mockup A / B Design

Survey Design

The survey consists of 16 questions including demographics, warm up, and comparative (thoughts and ideas) elements. I mostly use guide principles, survey questions, and scoring formula of the System Usability Scale (SUS) Survey to create the survey

Survey Preview

Results

- 70% of participants chose the proposed design (option B) and Average test score of option B is 74.88 (in comparison the average test score of Design A was 72.36).

- The survey average score shows that revising the site design can lead to a positive improvement in users' experiences.