CASE STUDY
Redefining High-End Air Travel for JSX
JSX is a semi-private airline that offers everyday travelers the ability to fly on private airplanes for a fraction of the cost. Their mission is to make semi-private air travel more affordable and less time consuming than commercial air travel.
I first discovered JSX during the pandemic, when I needed to visit family but wanted to avoid airport crowds and bring my large dog. It was exciting to see an alternative travel option but a lack of clear structure or information on their website prevented me from ever booking a flight.
JSX offers a unique and standout service compared to their competitors. With my proposed site redesign, JSX has the potential to scale their bookings and expand their brand presence.
TIMEFRAME6 weeks
TOOLSFigma
MY ROLEUI Designer
UX Designer
THE PROBLEM
The core offering is not clearly communicated to site visitors
The brand looks and feels like a budget airline
The website layout is cluttered and lacks clear section structure
The website is not mobile-responsive, making for a clunky mobile experience
THE SOLUTION
Communicate JSX’s core value proposition
Provide travelers with richer flight information
Educate commercial flyers about JSX’s competitive pricing
RESEARCH
How do travelers plan and book flights?
Understanding High-end travel habits
To initiate the research phase, I recruited five air travelers to interview between the ages of 30 and 60 years old. My goal was to understand what travelers look for in high-end travel, and what tactics travelers use to book flights.
Interview Topics
Questions (Sample)
Travel Experiences & Habits
Describe your most recent airline travel experience.
When would you opt for a more high-end seat (business/first)? If never, why?
Planning a Trip
What is your process for planing a trip and researching flights?
What is your biggest pain point related to researching flights for a trip?
Booking a Trip
What needs or preferences do you have for selecting a flight?
What other websites or services do you use to help book flights?
“I would be willing to try semi-private travel if I could get more information about what’s included. I want to see more images of the plane and the people”
— WB, Moderate Traveler
“I hate feeling like cattle when I board a commercial flight - I’m willing to pay more to avoid that whole experience”
— BH, Frequent Traveler
How do travelers use the existing JSX site?
Observing travelers using JSX
For phase two of the interview process I had all five participants share their screen and explore the existing JSX website while I asked some usability questions.
Scenarios
Interview Topics
Take a few seconds to scroll through and explore the homepage.Tell me about you first impressions of the website.
Homepage Experience
Imagine you’re a first time user of JSX. Walk me through where you would go to learn about JSX’s offerings.
Learning About JSX
You are getting ready to book a last minute flight tomorrow to Las Vegas. Walk me through how you would search for and book a flight.
Booking a Flight
“I would be willing to try semi-private travel if I could get more information about what’s included. I want to see more images of the plane and the people”
— TP, Moderate Traveler
“The current JSX website doesn’t feel high-end at all - these is so much non-essential content on the main page”
— AB, Frequent Traveler
Traveler’s open to semi-private travel
Analyzing research insights
Using affinity mapping to organize participant feedback I identified a clearer understanding of traveler pain points and needs.
While the majority of participants thought JSX…
Interested in trying out semi-private
Disliked the time it takes to prepare for commercial travel
Expect a lower stress experience when flying semi-private
the majority of participants were also…
Lacked descriptive content
Lacked cohesive content
Didn’t portray a high-end experience
Who is most likely to try semi-private air travel?
Developing moderate and frequent traveler personas
Based on the research findings, I developed two personas. These personas represent two types of travelers.
Persona one is a moderate traveler who is willing to splurge on high-end travel during the 3-4 times that he travels each year.
Persona two is a frequent traveler who will always opt for the more comfortable, high-end travel option when available during the 5-10+ times she travels each year.
The High-End Travel Enthusiast
Frequent Traveler
The Optimizer
Moderate Traveler
How do competitors differ?
Understanding the industry
Analyzing three competitors I noticed one thing that separated JSX from the rest - pricing. Competitor flight prices average 20-50% higher than a typical JSX flight.
It was crucial in the redesign to find better ways to promote JSXs ‘affordable yet high-end’ unique value proposition and create a clear brand presence.
DESIGN
A streamlined sitemap
Revising the info architecture
Reviewing the website with my interview participants was extremely informative. It was clear that the existing site structure contained more pages than most users needed. With too many pages and multiple navigation bars, users felt confused and often couldn’t find the page they were looking for.
The revised site map was simplified to showcase key pages needed by prospective flyers to learn about JSX’s offerings.
How will users complete key tasks?
Building three primary task flows
After re-focusing the website to cover a smaller set of core pages, I prioritized three task flows that a new site visitor was most likely to initiate, including researching JSX, planning a trip, and searching for flights
RESEARCHING JSX’S OFFERING
PLANNING A TRIP
SEARCHING FOR FLIGHTS
Ideating on feature layout
Low Fidelity Wireframing
In this ideation phase, I experimented by sketching out different layouts for the hero banner, bookings bar, imagery, and pricing comparison charts.
I selected the layouts that were the most simple and easy to navigate.
Building the layout
Mid-Fidelity Task Flows
The mid-fi wireframes were built out for the core pages, in order to plan and visualize task flows.
RESEARCHING JSX’S OFFERINGS
PLANNING A TRIP & SEARCHING FOR FLIGHTS
Refreshing the UI
Style Guide
It was important to ensure that the brand’s main color, a bold red, was kept in the redesign. This color is unique to their brand and part of their terminal/jet designs.
I decided on a color palette of complementary shades of black, white, gray, and salmon to balance out the bold red accents and keep the content feeling vibrant, while still high-end and professional.
V1 Designs
High-Fidelity Screens
The Homepage
The Experience
Testing
Usability Testing
Validating the design with usability tasks
The goal of testing the prototype was to understand how users interact and learn from richer site content. I wanted to see if the site redesign would help speed up their trip planning process and entice users to book flights with JSX. I asked the participants to complete three primary tasks;
Researching JSX
Planning a Trip
Searching for a Flight
4 out of 5 users completed all tasks without any direction or error
5 out of 5 users found it easy to understand JSX’s offering and learn how the flight experience worked
5 out of 5 users view JSX as a high-end brand offering a specialty experience
Optimizing for Ease of Navigation
Frequency to Severity Mapping
Using the frequency to severity mapping method, I prioritized the most frequent and severe issues impacting the design. Ultimately it was important to improve the overall site quality where possible - including images shown and detail of information provided. As a high-end brand, the site experience must be clean and clear for all who navigate it.
Making Iterations
High Resolution Imagery
Certain images with lower resolution were swapped out for high resolution images to maintain a high-end brand feel
Expand Page Filtering Options
Revise destinations, bookings, and pricing filters to include more information relevant to the user
Pricing Comparison Clarity
Revise pricing section title, body text, and subtitles to highlight competitive comparison more clearly
Flight Prices Button
Update the flight prices button placement to be more visible and central on the bookings page
Final Prototype
Key Learnings
Stay simple when talking to your users
After an analysis of the old website, I realized that the website was cluttered with an excess of content. A lot of important information hidden in plain sight, simply because there were too many pages to navigate. In the end, I realized that less is more. People are busy and site content needs to be straightforward and effective if we want to capture user interest.
Photos can make a break websites
It became clear during user testing, how drawn people are toward imagery. Users use visuals to paint a mental picture of the brand and their potential experience with the brand. Poor quality or inconsistent imagery can easily impact a user's perception of the brand, as was evident when some of my images had poor resolution.