United App
Using accelerated HCD methodology and a quick sprint framework to conceptualize the future of booking and traveling with United Airlines.
01 Overview
United Airlines was facing poor app engagement across both iOS and Android users, as well as an overwhelming degree of negative feedback — seen in App Store and Google Play reviews.
United Airlines charted my team with providing a fresh perspective for how to improve their app experience to better connect with travelers and drive long-term usage. We achieved this by utilizing a quick sprint framework to arrive at several strategic concepts.
The Opportunity
We saw United App as being a single destination for travel — leading with inspiration and executing with experience.
By pulling together the robust data and technology that already exists within the United ecosystem, we prompted an evolution of the app experience that can offer — and do — so much more for its users.
Research
Heuristic Analysis
Conducted an audit of the current United App, observing usability, functionality, and UX best practices.
Primary Research
Polled our colleagues to deepen our understanding of all things United customers and diversify our industry perspective.
Secondary Research
Reviewed research on the airline industry and customer experience, specifically focusing on the Millennial Bleisure Traveler and MileagePlus Loyalty Member.
Benchmarking
Evaluated other digital experiences both within industry and analogous to the airline industry across personalization, connected experiences, service design, and loyalty.
The Landscape
Along with our approach to benchmarking, we looked outside of the airline industry and evaluated how the United App exists among leading digital experiences — regardless of vertical.
02 Solution & Design
Our research helped us chart four concentrated solution areas, which became guiding design principles as we moved forward:
I. Experience first, loyalty second
An exceptional experience is the compelling driver for Millennial loyalty and leading apps are built upon a convergence of needs. Leverage United Airline’s expansive ecosystem of technology, data, and offerings to meet customers where they are at every point along their way
II. Be a destination for inspiration
The increasing bleisure travel customer wants more than travel. They want novel experiences. Reposition the United App as destination inspiration, discovery, and experience enhancements.
III. Contextualized personalization
Bring greater value to app users by personalizing the experience based on who they are and how they travel. Evolve app functionality to be hyper-contextual to travel stages and personal preferences.
IV. Elevate MileagePlus
Make it easier for MileagePlus members quickly to view their statuses, balances, progress, and perks. Bring transparency to mileage as a currency and empower customers to redeem in the ways that work best for them.
A Destination for Inspiration
Our heuristic analysis showed that the booking experience was clunky, lacking consistent hierarchy, and impersonal. We redesigned the experience with a more modern, intuitive UI and proposed, inspirational that is deeply personalized to the individual customer based on travel or browsing history.
A Dynamic Experience
Our secondary research and own assessments showed that customers were unable to find timely features or information as they progressed throughout their travels. We proposed a redesigned, highly contextualized that changes with users as they travel — personalized to their unique needs and loyalty status.
Bleisure Travel
Our research showed that bleisure travelers are looking to add fun experiences to their work travel but may not have time to research everything beforehand. (Forbes 2022)
To solve for this, we proposed a new exploratory experience within the app that enables United Airlines travelers to discover things to do and exclusive customer perks.
Loyalty & Membership
Lastly, we learned that customers enrolled in the lucrative MileagePlus Program had extreme difficulty locating and understanding their loyalty status within the app.
We addressed this by introducing a MileagePlus summary, accessible directly form the home screen. We also threaded MileagePlus information throughout the app and introduced redeemable miles as an alternative form of currency.
03 Outcomes
These concepts were shared with United Airlines — taken internally for further refinement and validation as part of a larger partnership.
Since delivering this work, several of these experience design recommendations have been notably implemented for iOS.