Project #
STARLUX Airlines is a luxury airline based in Taipei, Taiwan. In 2020, STARLUX launched its inaugural routes in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, with a plan to expand into North America.
In the winter of 2021, I was contracted to conduct virtual usability tests on the STARLUX website.
Objective #
The Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) requires that airlines conduct usability testing for seven core functions on their website or native app. The usability testing must include the following disability types: visual, auditory, tactile, and cognitive.
The pathways tested were:
- Access COSMILE account
- Conduct a timetable search
- Check a flight status
- Contact support by phone
Work #
I used moderated observational testing and video/audio recording transcripts in this study. This usability study focused on people with various disabilities. Recruitment primarily happened through personal channels and social media call-outs. The testers included people who had the following disability types: Blind (3), Low vision (3), Tactile/Motor (3), ADHD (2), and Dyslexia (2).
Data recorded for each tester included:
- General demographics
- Type(s) of disability
- Assistive technology used (if any)
- Task completed successfully or abandoned
- Rating of how easy it was to complete each task
- Suggestions for improving usability
- General feedback on the overall user experience
End Result #
In this user study, I found that user pathway #4 (Contact support by phone) had a 100% completion rate, user pathway #1 (Access the COSMILE test account) and pathway #3 (Check flight status) were completed 92% of the time, while the testers had the most difficulty with pathway #2 (Conduct timetable search) which were completed 84% of the time. In addition to overall completion rates, I broke down reported ease of use of each task by disability type and included qualitative reports on each task.
Team #
The team for this project included one representative from STARLUX Airlines, plus a project manager from Deque. I was primarily responsible for setting up the user tasks, video recordings, tester recruitment, qualitative/quantitative data analysis, and producing the summary reports.
Reflection #
This project was interesting because there were multiple language and time zone barriers to overcome as the client representative is based in China and is not fluent in English. The language and time zone barriers were not an issue during the study, but in the set-up and reporting out phases, we needed to be flexible and innovative to convey all of the results in as clear a manner as possible.
