While people are used to searching flight by entering dates and destinations,
Emirates would like to change the way flight search has operated for the last 30 years.

CHANLLENGE

objective

ROLE

"Enable different personas to search for flights online or on mobile devices in new & creative ways"

UX/UI Designer

I.   Persona

Daisy and Anderson just graduated from college, early in their careers, passionate about life. They spend most of their time working, do not have much leisure time. They share 3 common characteristics: budget concerned, open minded, and adept mobile user. 

Pain Point

When it comes to holiday time off, they want to go somewhere but just not where you want to go. The only thing they know is their travel budget. However, it's time-consuming to search for a flight based on the amount of money they want to spend.

II.   Idea Generation 

Therefore, we created a whole new process for flight search. It combines with budget, events and mobile experience.
Let everyone have fun with flight search.

III.   Key Features

  1. Enter Budget: 
    Tell us how much you want to spend on flight.
  2. Explore Destinations & Discover Upcoming Events: 
    Explore our map to discover all the cities you can go on your budget. Then, Discover events that match your passions!
  3. Book Flight Tickets: 
    Sorting by prices, you can book your flight joy!

IV.   Prototype

First, you can enter your travel budget for flight. Then, the map will show up all the destinations below your budget. Also, the number in the circle illustrate how many events are happening there during that time duration. Press the bubble and you can see more details about your interested events. Finally, you could book the flight ticket. It’s really simple and clear. We let flight search become a supportive tool to enhance our user experience. 

V.   Business Model

First, we can work with different organizations and local governments. They can promote their special events, festivals to increase exposure and attract a crowd.

Second, it’s also a great chance for Emirates to collect and analyze customer datas. We can know what’s the most common budget, customers' potential favorite places to visit and what categories of events would attract leads the most, etc.

VI. Results and Reflection

  • Stubhub award

  • METAWEAR award.

  • Top20 for 2015 Emirates Travel Hackathon

  • "UX/UI Design for flight search" article got 423 total views
    and was tweeted by Sanjay Sharma, Manager IT Innovation of Emirates.

 

It’s my first Hackathon! Participating in a hackathon was an extremely rewarding and exciting experience.
In conclusion, what I’ve learned is not only how to design flight search UX/UI but also how to work as a team.

UX/UI Design:
1. Don't be afraid to learn by copying others.
2. Learn to take constructive criticism

Teamwork:
1. How to merge into a single consensus from tons of ideas we had generated
2. How to assign task efficiently and effectively
3. Time management is really important