When COVID-19 happened, Singapore Airlines had to react quickly. Ground planes. Help passengers with their questions. Process refunds. Give clarity on quarantine and entry requirements for the destinations they're flying to.
Updates to the website had to be made fast and often. I was part of the rapid response team. We worked at speed, juggling the many moving parts and technological constraints. Most of all, we worked in an agile fashion, doing the best we can with what we have.
The first iteration with zero developmental work. I rewrote the information from their internal documents so it’s easy to understand.
Reacting quickly to reassure customers
When Singapore Airlines had to ground their planes, customers naturally had lots of questions. Their hotline was already swarmed with calls. The customer service centre saw long queues forming.
We helped to create a page on their website to let customers know about their options. Given the circumstances, there was no time for any development work.
We focused on using simple, reassuring language.
Continuously making improvements
We also started work on layout changes that could be implemented quickly. The goal was to make it easier for users to get the information they need.
We:
organised the content around user intentions
used accordions. This reduces cognitive load as the information is only shown if the user chooses to see it.
The second iteration with some developmental work. I reorganised the information around user intentions, so it’s easier to find.
The third iteration. We included information about travelling as travel restrictions had started to ease.
Pivoting with changing circumstances
As travel restrictions started to ease, more people were trying to find out what post-COVID flying looked like. By then, most of the affected customers had also received their flight credits or refunds.
Because of this, we changed the information hierarchy of the page so that information about travelling was shown first.
The goal was to:
let passengers know what they can expect if they fly
reassure passengers about the steps Singapore Airlines is taking to keep the safe
Thoughts
As part of my job, I've always had to balance business realities with UX practices. The importance of this was highlighted in this project.
Speed may be the best user experience. For this project, it was clear that everyone— users included—would prefer that we communicate the information quickly.
Information hierarchy and language matters. Even more so when there are technological constraints.
To keep up with fast-changing circumstances, prepare for them. We were able to make changes quickly because we thought about all the possible trajectories from the very beginning.