Pick up where you left off
I scoped design and design workshop methodologies to aid in solving a problem for a fortune 100 company, United Airlines.
Roles:
Design Sprint workshop modifier, organizer, facilitator, synthesizer
Design project scoping and strategy
UX Designer + Copywriter
The beginning: Saved Trips
Item 1 Saved Trips widget on united.com header.
On the united.com header, there is currently (June 2020) a feature called “Saved Trips” that stores searched trip data if the customer gets through selecting flights for a possible future trip. There is no active selection or saving done by the customer (like other “Save” features on other e-Commerce sites) because the cookies are scrapped and stored in the widget.
This nuanced name was puzzling to some at United, and other team members really liked it. One day, a data analyst brought to the greater product teams attention that 33% of customers who had a trip in “Saved Trips” converted at a higher rate than customers in the main booking path. There were many solutions ideated to increase the conversion rate; have the saved trips widget open on the header always, have a modal on the homepage that plops the customer in a new Saved Trips experience, market the saved trips header.
These were all viable solution options to test, but the name and the functionality didn’t match up. My team and I proposed a Design Sprint based on the high level of effort and high level of risk. The solutions created during the workshops ensured all avenues of customer-centric ideas could be explored.
To Sprint or not to Sprint…
Item 2 There is an axis displayed, with the X-axis as “Uncertainty” and the Y-axis as “Difficulty." When both Uncertainty and Difficulty are high, a sprint is a helpful tool too quickly find a smart solution.
We assessed the axis above (Item 2) to address if this was the right type of problem to solve with a Design Sprint. We came to the conclusion that the uncertainty of what a helpful solution could be and the unknown difficulty of that solution landed us in the “SPRINT!” section of the diagram.
Tailoring the Design Sprint methodology for United
In June of 2019, my team and I went to a Design Sprint facilitation conference in Toronto, CA to learn the methods and practice our facilitation skills. When we returned, we knew these methods would come in handy when creating solutions with a broader team. My task was to take stock in the goal of what United needed, and tailor the Design Sprint methodologies to those goals. The typical Design Sprint is 5 days long (see Item 3 below), with presence from every team member required each day. In a corporate setting, getting folks to commit 5 days of undivided attention proved to be impossible. There was no way the 5 day long experience would be do-able. We needed to make the commitment shorter.
I took stock of the methods and pared down Day 1 to a 2.5 hour long meeting, and combined day 2 and day 3 into one very long and exhausting day (Day 2). The days 4 and 5 were to be a scoped project (Day 3) to be worked on by the Homepage strategy team who participated in the workshop. I spent the weeks prior to the sprint planning the methods, organizing my team, and preparing information for our stakeholders for the Sprint to be set up for success. This was a completely new practice for our team and I created the framework for the process as our team wanted to grow the Design Sprint practice at United.
Item 3 A picture of the Design Sprint method - outlining what happens on each day of the Sprint. This picture shows where I broke up the days to create a workshop method that worked within the constraints of our stakeholders.
Day 1
I started the day by introducing the 30 participants to the Design Sprint method, the guidelines, and the “How Might We” (HMW) methodology. I encouraged everyone in the room to make HMW notes throughout our time to ensure any questions would be captured and framed in an open-ended way. We started the day off by walking through any relevant qualitative and quantitative data.
Start with data
Our analytics partner showed us data explaining which customers are using the Saved Trips function, what their conversion rate was, and uncovered a similar feature called "recent searches" that housed the same data as Save Trips. This information helped outline what customers were behaviorally doing and gave everyone objective facts to define the problem.
Conversion is was currently 20% from booking widget.
Conversion is 51% from the Saved Trips widget.
If we can drive 1% more customers in Saved Trips, there would be an additional $1.1m in revenue.
More non-members use Saved Trips, then general, then premier.
If a customer uses recent searches, they are twice as likely to convert, but if they use saved trips they are three times as likely to convert.
Long-term goal setting
Next, I asked the group to create some long term goals. The first goal was decided upon as the most important long-term goal.
1. Increase engagement + conversion; understand our target user
2. Increase CSAT; create a positive use experience
3. Increase visibility/discoverability of tool and customer understanding of how to use Saved Trips
4. Increase speed of booking for customers
HMW problem statement
To create alignment, I led the group through the “Make a Map” process. We co-created a customer journey map of how a customer interacts with our booking flow. The map outlines who is involved, the end point of the journey, and the steps along the customer journey.
We then grouped the HMW’s and has everyone dot vote the of HMW’s to finalize which HMW to ideate around. We chose the below HMW from a long list of great candidates, knowing that this question would encourage open and free ideation.
How might we shorten the search-to-conversion rate from the homepage?
Day 2
As the facilitator, I guided the group through a series of methods to create a solution to answer our HMW question. Here was the lineup of the day. I created a mash-up of Day 2 and Day 3 in the Design Sprint methodology.
Item 4 The methods we used from the Design Sprint book during the Design Sprint surrounding “Saved Trips.”
Lightning Demos: Amazon
During the Lightning Demos, there was one that stole the show. One of our data analyst partners brought Amazon’s “Pick up where you left off” feature on their homepage.
If a customer looks at or interacts with a certain product but does not buy it, the next time the customer comes to Amazon’s homepage, Amazon will resurface the customer’s product choices on the homepage. From a functionality standpoint, it felt like the information we were scrapping with “Saved Trips” was very similar to the Amazon’s feature. This specific demo became the foundational block for discussion and ideation.
Sketching and deciding
We went through the ideation, sketching and decision making methods outlined in Day 2 and Day 3 in the Design Sprint book. The final sketch chosen was a sketch of the homepage that showed “Pick up where you left off” under the initial booking widget, showing the customers their previous searches so they could pick up where they left off.
Testing the idea with customers
I met with the research team and the designer of the team to work through the test plan and outline the functionality and features to test in the prototype.
Research findings
Item 5 The first version of “Pick up where you left off” we tested with customers.
Version 1
The use of thumbnails in V1 made users think that the section was an ad.
All customers understood the “Continue booking” concept and why a user would potentially go to a different part of the booking path.
Item 6 The second version of “Pick up where you left off” we tested with customers.
Version 2
More customers saw and scrolled to the positioning of the section in V2
Overall V2 was more well-received with the participants we tested, because of the content hierarchy within the flight block.
Future testing and functionality opportunities
Highlight previous selection
Several users said when they clicked on “View more flight times” that it would be helpful if the FSR page highlighted the time that they had previously selected (that was shown in the saved search section).
“Track” flights
Users mentioned they thought that the price displayed was locked in from the first time they searched. Potential for adding “Tracking” on the price here ie “Price has increased since you last searched.”
Cookie and account based
MileagePlus users mentioned that they clear their cookies after doing a flight search so that they get the best possible prices, suggesting that United might want to make the saved search both cookie and account based.
Final designs
“Pick up where you left off”
Item 7: “Pick up where you off” feature in production on the homepage.
The final design was very similar to the Version 2, with the price in bold near the “Continue booking” button. The card design used an already existing component in our design system, making it easy for developers to pick up the code. For accessibility reasons, we decided to put an opaque blue background behind the “Pick up where you left off” cards. All the pictures in the carousel could not have a dark enough background to pass WCAG AAA guidelines. With a static opaque background, we could ensure “Pick up where you left off” was always accessible.
End with data
This feature launched at 10% in February of 2020, just before the COVID-19 epidemic. By April 8th, it was at 100% throttle on united.com and by April 23rd, it was also in app. The feature on both channels displayed promising results in an environment where demand is highly depressed.
United.com homepage
The conversion rate for customers who clicked on it is 18% (+15pts vs. overall conversion rate from homepage, June 2020)
Daily impression: 20% of homepage sessions
Click through rate: 4.3%
Non-members typically convert at a rate of 2% from the homepage
When non-members click “Pick up”, the conversion rate jumps to 17% (We saw a similar variance in purchase rates for all other member types)
United app
Daily impression: 8% of app sessions
Click-through rate: 2.3% (+1pt vs. fee waiver and fare sale carousel placements, which indicates good engagement)
The conversion rate for customers who clicked on it is 1.7% (vs 1.2% of non-clickers and 0.4% of those without the placement)
Final thoughts
Design Sprints catch on
I learned how to scale the Design Sprint workshop methodology to meet my large, corporate company’s needs and create a feature on our site with minimal effort. This entire workshop was a successful experiment in the teams I worked with - it sparked a long list of Design Sprint candidates and requests coming from all over the company.
How to improve DS
I personally exercised my presentation and public speaking skills, and made note of future improvements to the timing and explanation of certain methods in the workshops. Before the next Design Sprints I facilitated, I ensured we implemented the learnings from group retrospective meetings to increase engagement with the workshops.
Thankful for my team
The work my team and I did truly pushed the needle in creating a better experience for our customers and increased profits for the business.
I’m happy to say United customers can now pick up where they left off.