The Challenge

United Airlines sought to refine and elevate the user experience of United.com, making it easier for customers to book flights on their flagship site.

Preparing to launch a beta version of their new site, they needed to understand the needs of their customers and how they could build brand loyalty over other leading airlines and travel booking services.

As part of this effort, United asked Centralis to rigorously test both their current site and their new site against those of their competitors.

The Process

Centralis conducted fifty-two usability testing sessions over two phases. In the first phase, we assessed the usability of the then-current United.com against three key competitors. Our assessment included both qualitative and quantitative metrics, such as interviews on participants’ research habits and on- and off-brand adjective selection.

Using our findings and recommendations from this round, United Airlines completed a beta-version redesign of their website that we evaluated six months later against the same and additional competitors.

The Impact

Users found the redesign following Centralis’ initial recommendations to be a significant improvement over the original, and they were able to move through tasks such as booking a flight much more easily. The increase in United.com’s Net Promoter Score reflected this sentiment.

Testing in two phases also allowed us to demonstrate and quantify United.com’s growth relative to its competitors, leading to more buy-in for a user-centered approach within the company.

Centralis provided United with further recommendations so they could keep refining their website over time.