British Airways: Innovating the Customer Experience

Future-thinking concepts and prototypes delivering an improved mobile experience.

Various screenshots of the updated iOS British Airways app designs.

Background

Wanting to improve customer interaction with their brand, British Airways tasked us to explore how this could be achieved through their apps. This project aimed to showcase a myriad of new features using current smartphone technology with a philosophy that the app should prioritise and communicate relevant information to the user depending on where they are in their booking (before, during or after).

I joined on the tail-end of its first release: a timeline view where a user could simply check in, see travel details and receive gate information. I led the design and prototyping on a number of concepts which were tested with real customers and proposed as future releases for the iPhone app.

Seat upgrades

We explored ways for users to be able to upgrade their seat easily through the app, or even receive special offers from British Airways if the user had been selected for a cheaper upgrade.

Various screenshots of the upgrade journey on iOS. — Concepts for upgrading before your flight.

In-flight entertainment

This concept evolved from a discussion with British Airways' in-flight department who were exploring ways of getting customers devices to interact with in-flight technology using a planes wifi.

We designed a journey where a user could potentially experience in-flight entertainment and easily hand over to their seats headset once they were boarded and connected to the planes wifi.

Inflight entertainment concepts where users could start entertainment on their phone and push it to their seat display. — Concepts for viewing in-flight entertainment on your phone which could then be handed over to a users seat headset once on the plane.

Passport scan

A popular feature from customer feedback was the ability to use the app to scan your passport and pre-populate whenever this information was required.

I created the following high fidelity prototype using Flinto which we also used to test with customers. User feedback showed that removing this data was as important as adding it, which we made simple with a "hold to remove" feature.

Using the camera on iOS to pick out passport data and prepopulate to store on the app. I also introduced a "hold to remove" feature.

Booking flow exploration

We worked with senior stakeholders in British Airways to propose an improved booking flow. We worked on a variety of concepts to present where I led the following two routes:

A traditional booking flow, with a more visual and interactive selection process. Had to appear tactile and very easy to navigate and change options.

Booking flow concepts on iOS. — A first concept at a traditional booking flow streamlined for a quicker app experience.

Using a chatbot as a starting point, this booking flow exploration aimed to give a voice to the booking journey.

Timeline Phase 2

Already launched in the first release, I helped with phase 2 of the timeline which involved a refined look and feel and the ability to explore multiple legs of a journey in one view.

Further exploration for the built timeline experience. This prototype explores persistent information and how that would contract as the user scrolls through their timeline.