Improving a Benefit Experience
Airline employees have the perk of designating eligible people to use their flight benefits (such as flying standby). These people are known as an employee's "circle of travelers." The eligibility rules around who can be designated are enforced by HR employees.
Different Use Case Problems
All Employees: filled out a new web form every time they wanted to add or edit their circle of travelers, and they had to remember the eligibility rules. If changes needed to be made, employees relied on emails from HR.
HR Employees: used a very manual process to manage all circle of travelers requests that included updating spreadsheets and sending individual emails.
The Solution
Create a streamlined system with two connected web apps:
- An employee app that saves circle of travelers data, where employees can manage their circle and receive communication from HR
- An admin app just for HR employees who can view, approve, or deny circle of travelers based on eligibility rules
Testing the Employee View
Part of what made my HR stakeholder awesome was that they knew nearly everyone in the corporate office! We conducted 9 usability test interviews on an employee view concept. The findings helped influence the final designs.
Some of the Findings that Influenced Designs
Most employees wouldn’t have the documentation needed for proof of relationship for their circle (i.e. birth certificates for their children), so it was important to have a “save and complete later” feature.
Not all employees noticed the educational content within the UI that was tested so it was important to refine those designs as well as provide an evergreen link to the Employee Travel Policy.
Most employees aren’t given desktop-size computers so the designs needed to be responsive to allow everyone to manage their circle of travelers on various devices.
Employee View Designs
The design strategy focused on a hub and spoke concept that:
- Centered clear, user-friendly design and content to account for the variety of digital literacy among all employees
- Had contextual educational content to help maximize self-service
The hub page for the Circle of Travelers employee view
Add screen with a form for an employee to add a spouse, travel partner, or designee
Admin View Designs
To accommodate the HR employees with managing all circles of travelers, the design focused on:
- Organizing record data by employee name and number
- An overall organized structure for easy searching and wayfinding
- Visual cues for task-based controls to process travelers quickly
The landing page of the Circle of Travelers Admin view
A selection of UI details within the Circle of Travelers Admin view
Conclusion & Reflection
Happy Stakeholder
The HR stakeholder was pleased with the final designs (“From a design perspective, it’s great.”), however, there were some technical challenges that affected the final product.
Product Treatment
It would be interesting to treat the Circle of Travelers experience like a product so it could be iterated and improved upon for employees.
Fun Challenge
This was a fun project because it was employee-facing and had a whole different type of complexity compared to traveler-facing work. I also enjoyed navigating the admin view challenges.