Pulse of the Traveler

Background

As the team settled in to working from home and the drastic shifts in our business, there were many tactical needs such as refunds and rebooking updates, homepage alerts, etc, but there was also a broader gap in understand what our customers needed then and in the future. As a design researcher, I knew we could not be as successful as possible in executing on the tactical updates if we didn’t understand the new and evolving needs of our customers. This insight needed to inform the prioritization, tone and strategy of our work moving forward in 2020 and beyond. I saw this strategic need and proposed we run ongoing foundational research called “Pulse of the Traveler” to provide updated insights to our product teams, business decision makers and leadership.

My Role

Our (small but mighty) team of researchers, made up of 3 seniors and 1 analyst were stretched thin during the UX teams response to COVID-19. While I was still responsible for product usability testing and other research needs, I came up with the idea for the Pulse of the Traveler research initiative and independently executed 2 rounds of research. I also collaborated with quantitative and market research teams within United (outside of our department) to ensure our findings highlighted a cohesive and actionable story for our stakeholders.

This research was also used as the discovery phase for a:

• cross product team design workshop and sprint that I helped plan and facilitate.

• new product functionality that was envisioned, designed, tested and piloted in dozens of airports within 6 weeks. I was the lead researcher on this initiative.

Process

After speaking with product team designers and product managers about their strategy moving forward in the climate of COVID-19 , I started to recognize a knowledge gap, so I brought this idea of the “Pulse of the Traveler” to my manager, who fully supported my plan. From there I planned the research and set expectations with my teams.

With loss of business and new demands on the team, United, like many others, had to make some drastic cuts to our staff and tool set. Almost immediately we lost all contract UX staff and only had access to one of our research tools. Due to my bandwidth limitations and limited resources, I chose to execute the study as an unmoderated study on Usertesting.com. This allowed me to plan, recruit, and launch the study quickly. I was able to collect the insights simultaneously and watch the recordings of the research respondents efficiently, while still completing other projects. I also had a lot of previous experience with unmoderated remote studies on this platform, so I was confident I could create a test plan that allowed participants to express their concerns and needs but still anticipate follow up questions to include in the study.

I also partnered with quantitative teams outside of our department to share data and insights to ensure our stakeholders understand the full customer narrative.

I conducted 2 rounds of this research in order to provide continuous updated insights for the team. Some questions and objectives remained consistent while some changed to address new needs the team had and the changing climate. The test plan calls for additional rounds of testing with suggested methodologies such as diary studies once there is an uptick in travel.

Research
overview

Objective

Determine what customers need in order to feel comfortable booking and traveling again, and share those insights with product teams on a continuous cadence.

• Round one (early April) focused on customers that had travel plans impacted or possibly impacted by COVID-19 in 2020 with 1/3 having canceled itineraries, 1/3 booked with the possibly of it being canceled or postponed, and 1/3 in the planning stages of travel for 2020. The intention of focusing on these groups was to understand the immediate needs of how to help customers who needed to cancel or rebook, but also consider how these scenarios may impact travel in the future.

• The second round (mid may) had similar objectives, but focused on comparing participants from states with more ‘open’ regulations to those with more ‘closed’ guidelines. I focused on these groups of people to understand the outlook of travel and how it compared between people who were more restricted or not.

Methodology

Qualitative studies were conducted on Usertesting.com. Participants went through a set of open ended and rating scale questions, recording their responses on a continuous video.

67 participants in total

• Round 1: 36 participants

• Round 2: 31 participants
  

Research questions:

•  How has COVID-19 impacted your daily life and travel tendencies?*

• What do you consider to be trusted sources of information about COVID-19?

• How do you feel about your current local restrictions and regulations?

• What did you think about how the airline handled your canceled or postponed trip?

• When do you feel you will be comfortable flying and booking future travel?*

• What is the most important thing an airline can do to make you feel safe enough to travel?*

• How do you feel about airlines offering discounts?*

• What are your expectations for flying when travel begins again?*

  … and how do these answers change over time?
  *indicted objectives explored in both rounds of research

Execution

Each round of research took about three weeks to plan, recruit, execute and analyze all findings. This included:

• research plan review with the research team for input and refinement

• screener/study script writing and programming (usertesting.com)

• watching and taking notes on participant response videos (10-30 min each) in data sheet

• analyzing and compiling trends

• drafting and editing findings report

• share out to stakeholders and collaborating on next steps