Mission – build a brand new world class offering
In 2014, I was recruited to create a new flight search product (similar to Kayak and Skyscanner) for Cheapflights / Momondo (now part of the Priceline Group) and develop a UX function and team from scratch.
This involved establishing practises and processes, gaining the trust of the key stakeholders and the Executive Board. I built collaborative bridges with Product, Analytics, Development, Testing and Visual Design Teams. Below I describe the approaches I took to build the environment for success.
Strategy for delivering a user centric new product
I developed a plan for key areas and actions I would need to take in order to deliver the new Product. I initiated this with a User-centric approach and also established a way of working that integrated with existing and planned for teams. This enabled the UX team to fit seamlessly into an approach that aligned with:
- Testing
- Product Group (to be developed – to support the meta search product)
- Development
- Analytics
- Visual Design
- Marketing and other groups.
I established credibility at board-level. I helped people within key positions within the organisation understand UX. This centred around:
- what UX is
- its potential
- approaches
- lean principles
- evidence based design
- UX can design and work to deliver a high-value user centric product.
Setting out – Reviewing Existing user intelligence material
On arrival, I reviewed the existing evidence from usability testing of competitors’ solutions. This was done to build a base understanding of what users’ expectations were for a meta search comparison sites.
Understanding the marketplace – how the users thought
From here I was determined to conduct research at every opportunity. Initially, this was primarily guerilla in nature. I wanted to understand how users approached searching and decided on what flight option was best for them. From this point, I started to build a mental model of users’ behaviours. I continually built on this model and understanding. These insights also became widely used assets that were used to shape strategies across the company beyond UX.
Building the new Product
I worked directly with the Head of Product – Suzanne Lilley who was based in the US. I determined the stages that we would have to go through in order to create an initial design concept. I proposed and acted on the appropriate steps to deliver an initial design for the brand new Product.
Gathering Information & Building Support
I consulted widely with knowledgeable people within the business. This gave me the opportunity to understand the business and the wider market. This not only provided excellent insight but also helped to establish credibility and buy-in. I listened intently to how they felt the company had arrived at where they were and what they felt needed to be done for them to succeed. At later stages of delivery, I referred back to what senior leaders had previously raised. In getting longer-term support it was crucial that senior members of the business knew and understood they were heard.
UX – Education
I established programmes of education about UX for key colleagues to draw them into the process. Some of the people most enthusiastic about this proved to be excellent UX advocates later on.
The approaches I took varied depending on the role. This ranged from members of the visual design team to members of the executive board. I regularly presented at the board level about the value of the approaches we were taking. This establishing of credibility, both personally and of evidence-based approaches, proved valuable on many occasions.
UX Process and Product Strategy
I worked to build a lightweight, user evidence-based, lean approach to design.
I gained the approval of Suzanne (Head of Product) and the Executive board for strategic design proposals.
- This involved designing all the key elements of the experience.
- This extended from:
- the homepage,
- the key search form
- all the aspects of the results display page.
- These were crucial experience differentiators from our competitors that gained credit for their effective and innovative natures.
- I then added the novel and highly effective filter design to the overall experience, which was rigorously user-tested to ensure its effectiveness.
- All the various aspects had to be broken down into components and features to be designed, iterated and prototyped before having branding applied and being delivered to Development.
- The tool of choice for wireframing and prototyping was Axure:
- it allowed the sophisticated interactions that I needed to convey to developers, board members and facilitated effective user testing.
The continued expansion of the influence of UX in building the product was based upon the successful design and evidenced effectiveness enabling delivery.
After delivering all the designs for the experience I won the support I was looking for. This enabled the ongoing Product development to be based on a user-centric, evidence-based mindset.
To deliver an expanded scope beyond the core experience I would need greater support. Now it was time to focus on building a great team.
Next: Team Building