Philippine Airlines Website

Issues

The heuristic evaluation identified several issues, most of which were related to website navigation and accessibility. These issues affected how customers discovered content.

We also analyzed and benchmarked PAL's sitemap against those of other airlines. By analyzing the sitemap, we learned that:

• Key revenue-generating content—like baggage information or seat upgrade information—were buried deep within the site.
• Content wasn't always found where customers expect to find it.
• Some pages were repeated redundantly through out the website. This was information overload for the website's users.

Design Solutions

1. Restructure the information architecture

In reconstructing PAL’s information architecture, we minimized redundancies—like About Us information—in both main and footer navigations.
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We finalized a sitemap that focused in providing logical and intuitive paths to accomplishing user tasks.

In some cases, finding information still takes a user deeper into the site but, now, the website is structured to make it easier to locate information from the home page.

2. Make important travel information more discoverable

The new main navigation focuses on providing everything that a customer might need in a more intuitive location. Travel Information is also organized in a way that makes sense to customers. The new design provides quick access to previously underexposed self-service content.

3. Place primary actions in an accessible location

Four key customer jobs-to-be-done when the user visits the website are:

• Booking a flight
• Checking in
• Managing a booking
• Checking flight status

These four key customer jobs-to-be-done are now accessible from a single location which is always visible above the fold.

4. Contrast flight deals vs other promos

We split the current design’s all-the-promos-are-here section into two distinct sections, Flight Promotions and Travel Extras.

Grouping information in this manner makes it easier for customers to identify and understand it.

Flight Promotions offers an easy way to discover cheap trips.

Travel Extras include promotions for travel insurance and lounges. These provide added revenue for the airlines.

5. Improve visibility of revenue-generating airline products

The new design puts an emphasis on purchasing extra baggage allowance, getting seat upgrades, and buying travel insurances.

At the time, these three comprised about 20% of PAL's current online revenue.

By placing these options in an area that is consistently above the fold in most devices, we hope to increase its accessibility to customers who need it.

6. Design for mobile-first

During the study, we learned that a huge percentage of customers viewed the website using their mobile phones.

The new design makes sure that the website is accessible—and beautiful —from a mobile view.

Key actions (booking a flight, checking in, etc) are within reach of the customers thumbs and provide a quick way to complete key tasks. And below these key actions are the revenue-generating content like baggage allowance, seat upgrades, and travel insurance.

Lastly, the navigation sticks to the top to provide quick access to more travel information.