Redesigning the Seattle Seaplanes Website
Client: Seattle Seaplanes
Role: UX Designer and Researcher
Collaboration: Team of 5 UX Designers and Researchers
Timeframe: 3 months
Research methods: Usability testing, contextual inquiries, surveys, user interviews
Problem: The Seattle Seaplanes website was outdated, contained an overwhelming amount of written content and had a redundant and unorganized information architecture. The client wanted a redesign to help increase scenic tour bookings and decrease unnecessary calls and emails.
Solution: An updated information architecture to reduce user confusion and highlight features such as scenic tour routes and contact information, an FAQs page to help reduce phone calls and updated content to reduce wordiness and jargon.
For this project, I worked on a team with four other UX designers and researchers to redesign the Seattle Seaplanes website by working directly with the client. Seattle Seaplanes is a local small business providing scenic seaplane tours, charter flights, and flight certification off of Lake Union in Seattle.
Original Seattle Seaplanes website.
Initial Website Design Evaluation
The Seattle Seaplanes initial website was outdated and had an overabundance of written content. Informed by user research, I worked with a team to update their website. I focused on:
Modernizing their visual branding.
Updating outdated content.
Reorganizing their site to improve user experience and increase bookings.
Scenic tours, most popular during the summer months, are their primary source of income with lessons supplementing their earnings during the slower months. The redesign specifically aimed to highlight these two services as they are focal points for the business.
Out of scope: Switching from phone bookings to online bookings. Seattle Seaplanes places an emphasis on friendly and prompt customer service. Run by a small crew of pilots, they exclusively book through phone and were not equipped or interested in making the switch to an online booking service. Therefore, online booking was out of the scope for this project.
Instead, the redesign emphasized increasing phone calls in which “they seal the deal” to book tours, charters, and flight lessons.
Design and Business Goals
Design Goals
Visual design
Update branding and color.
Include punchy visuals highlighting scenic views and create a sense of adventure using aerial photos, gifs, and videos.
Add cohesive buttons and icons throughout every page of the website.
Content
Highlight scenic flight destinations and relevant information to reduce customer questions and increase bookings.
Add safety records and related information to address passenger concerns revealed in research.
Highlight business history as a small local business.
Showcase pilot personalities through bios and photos.
Streamline and condense content.
Include updated FAQ information focused on addressing the most common email and phone call inquiry questions
Structure
Reorganize and condense site structure based on card sort and research findings.
Improve text hierarchy for accessibility and readability.
Business Goals
Decrease amount of questions received online or over the phone by 10% in the next 3 months.
Increase appointments/bookings through phone by 15% in the next 6 months.
Increase flight training sign-ups by 5% in the next 3 months.
User Research
User research began with a team field trip to the Seattle Seaplanes base where we met our client and conducted field research, contextual inquiries, and user interviews. We also pursued additional research through surveys, and an analysis of online reviews.
Taking a tour of Seattle Seaplanes with our client contact, Yvette.
Research Findings: User Tasks and Personas
User research helped me gain a better idea of who the user base was and what goals they were looking to achieve. I collaborated with my team to create a task matrix, which helped formulate the three personas below, with Tourist Alex as the primary persona.
Information Architecture
The user research made it clear that the Seattle Seaplanes site needed to be streamlined and reorganized to decrease user confusion and redundant phone calls. It also needed to highlight features such as scenic tour routes and contact information to increase bookings.
I did a card sort with my team to create a tree sorting exercise using Optimal Workshop. Based on feedback from five participants, I helped rebuild the site information architecture to create a more intuitive website, as seen below.
Ideation and Protoyping
Building off of the user research and new IA, I worked with my team to build out paper prototypes and complie existing examples of sites that met the goals of our users and client. Below are some of our initial sketches.
Usability Testing
I conducted four usability tests with my group using a mid-fidelity prototype. Some major issues identified were:
Some participants had trouble distinguishing between the 'experience' and 'flight training' sections.
The navigation menu lacked clear indications or labels regarding the type of information each page provides.
Final Redesign
I helped finalize our high-fidelity prototype in Figma based on the usability tests, which you can see below. Updates included:
Updated information architecture to reduce user confusion and highlight features such as scenic tour routes and contact information to increase bookings.
An FAQs page to help reduce unneccessary phone calls.
CTA call outs and banners to direct people to book a tour.
New content to reduce wordiness and jargon.
Updated visual elements to modernize the site and catch the user’s attention.
Below are some examples of specific elements we updated in our redesign.
Before (left) and after (right): Updated information architecture to help users navigate where they wanted to go more easily.
Before (left) and after (right): Condensed content, added images, and updated headers and spacing to make content easier to digest.
Added FAQs to help users find information quickly.
Challenges and Reflection
Some of the main challenges that were presented were a lack of domain knowledge about the seaplane industry and difficulty accessing Seattle Seaplanes’ customers. If l did this project over again, I would have conducted more usability testing and formative research with Seattle Seaplanes’ target users.