03 — UX Design Institute

UX Design Diploma - Flight Booking App

UX Research·Usability Testing·Interaction Design

Organisation: UX Design Institute
Role: UX Designer / student
Responsibilities: Research, synthesis, IA, interaction design, prototype
Constraint: Completed while working full time
Project type: Professional Diploma coursework

I self-funded a Professional Diploma in UX Design to strengthen the research and UX methodology behind my existing professional design practice. The primary coursework involved researching and designing a flight booking experience.

The work was completed alongside a full-time design role, with coursework primarily undertaken during evenings and weekends. It gave me a more structured UX methodology to complement my existing experience in digital design.

01: Research

Competitor analysis, user interviews and moderated usability testing of existing booking experiences, Testing revealed that participants struggled to compare fare options and became uncertain about what was included in each fare.

6 participants interviewed
4 competitor experiences analysed
5 moderated usability tests

Moderated usability testing session over video call, with a participant sharing the Ryanair flight search page

02: Synthesis

Affinity diagramming, personas and journey analysis to turn raw observations into patterns and clearly defined problems.

Affinity diagram of usability testing notes for flight booking websites, grouped into themes such as homepage and booking form, results, and proceed to payment

Customer journey map for booking a flight online, showing emotions, user quotes, positives, pain points, mental models and goals across each step from homepage to payment

03: Structure

Information architecture, user flows and wireframes, structuring the complex parts of booking: dates, passengers, fares and confirmation, before any visual design began.

Lo-fi wireframes of the homepage booking form and results page, with annotation notes beside each screen

04: Interface

Interaction design and a prototype of the flight booking app, informed by the evidence gathered throughout the research and testing process.

Final prototype homepage of the flight booking app, with the booking form showing departure and return dates, passengers and a search button

Final prototype results page of the flight booking app, showing outbound and return flight times, fares and select buttons side by side

The course changed the way I approached design, away from visual preference and business assumption, and towards evidence-led decisions.

What I took from it

Structure complex information before designing polished interfaces
Test ideas early and avoid jumping directly into high fidelity
Treat iteration as part of the process rather than a failure
Understand how research, definition, ideation, prototyping and testing connect
Apply the Double Diamond as a coherent working process rather than disconnected activities