British Airways
Research, Data Strategy, Prototyping, Validation
ROLES
Lead UX Architect, Lead Data Strategist
CHALLENGE
British Airways was looking to redefine and rebuild their online customer experience to improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue by 67% in 5 years. This would be no easy feat. While historically one of the most prestigious air travel brands, British Airways was in the middle of an identity crisis. The BA.com user experience was disjointed and inconsistent. Its visual language was confusing and uninspiring.
BA’s internal design team brought Ogilvy in to define big bet opportunities, prove the potential value of a redesign, and validate early concepts with users.
SUMMARY OF APPROACH
Phase 1 - Discovery and Online Performance Analysis
Align with stakeholders and investigate BA’s expansive libraries of qualitative and quantitative customer data to mine for actionable insights.
Phase 2a/b - Target Audience Definition and Journey Mapping
Used insights to identify target audiences, map their end-to-end customer journey, identify common pain points, compare to industry benchmarks and trends, and finally highlighted the largest gaps and deficiencies in their online experience.
Phase 3 - Big Bet Opportunity Identification, Design, and Validation
Used the final research to create a series of recommendations on “big bet” design optimizations and began mocking-up blue sky solutions. The solutions were then validated with users. Learnings were translated into a projected ROI and a comprehensive business case that successfully supported the continued investment of a site wide redesign.
SERVICES PROVIDED
Stakeholder alignment workshops
Data analysis and insight synthesis
Target audience identification
User experience gap analysis
Interactive data visualization of quantitative user profiles, journey maps, and online performance
MVP prototypes
Usability testing
Business case development
Credits
Lead Designer: Heidi Hillenbrand
Lead Researcher: Riley Conrath
Sr. Director of Data Strategy: Kristin Youngling
+ Huge thanks goes out to the whole internal British Airways data and design crews :)
Phase 1 - Discovery and Performance Analysis
Through a series of stakeholder alignment workshops and a deep dive into British Airway’s data landscape, the team studied BA.com’s information architecture, behavior flows, customer complaints, up-sell strategies, audience segments, common purchasing trends, and more.
Phase 2a - Target Audience Definition
The quantitative character profiles and journey maps of Harry and Marta represent a synthesis of customer insights gained through existing BA segment data, user research findings, and third-party travel trends. The primary dimensions used to identify Harry’s and Marta’s characters were travel recency, frequency, purpose, transactions, club membership, affinity, and their estimated lifetime customer value. The final interactive profiles serve as dynamic design manual for informing creative decisions and addressing customer needs.
Phase 2b - Journey Mapping
Each journey map reflects the unique mindset, personal goals, circumstances, and decisions of the Harry and Marta characters and by layering in engagement metrics, the maps also reveal how customers that align with their profiles actually engage with the brand at scale. The interactive maps showed Harry’s journey as a business traveler seeking to quickly book and feel prepared for his long haul flight, while Marta’s journey, as a seasoned BA traveler, was looking to burn Avios on a short haul trip for a city break.
Phase 3 - Big Bet Opportunity Identification, Design, and Validation
Opportunities identified: 1.) Pre-Travel / Manage My Booking 2.) Executive Club / Avios Redemption
User testing validated the commercial goals defined for customers like Harry – to increase customer confidence in feeling travel-ready, the propensity to add an ancillary, Executive Club benefit awareness, and brand preference for business travel. For customers like Marta, the team also confirmed an increase in Executive Club benefit awareness and in Avios redemption satisfaction.
