Delivering a seamless digital experience with Virgin Australia

With more and more travellers using their smartphones to book travel, check-in to flights, and access boarding passes, Virgin Australia was in need of a more all-encompassing solution for its mobile travel experiences.

Virgin Australia approached us to undertake a total redesign and development of its native iOS and Android apps to give guests an intuitive, seamless, and user-friendly experience across every touchpoint.

The approach to creating a completely new app was more than just an exercise in technology development and deployment; It required human-centred design that not only identified all of the user’s wants, needs, preferences, and pain points, but also addressed them in a logical, coherent, and compelling way.

Assembling a large group of real Virgin Australia guests, we conducted research and testing that encompassed both leisure and business travellers to ensure we had a deep understanding of the needs and challenges of users. From planning and paying for trips to the time leading up to their departure date, the day of travel, and coming back again, every single touchpoint was considered to construct an effortless, stress-free experience for all users.

From there, the job was to establish a roadmap of functionality and features to implement, starting with the ability to book a flight, check-in, and access boarding passes. Feedback from internal stakeholders and external users would then dictate what should take priority for future releases, such as viewing Velocity points and a transaction history.

The look and feel of the app also needed to be consistent with Virgin Australia’s branding. Initially, this meant building the app with custom components, which don’t always behave as expected and can lead to problems when it comes to OS upgrades. For this reason, the team championed the use of native elements wherever possible to improve performance, mitigate risk, and enhance the user’s experience.

A design system for the mobile apps was developed to help support designers and developers get things out the door quickly for testing and iteration while maintaining consistency and guidance. The system differs slightly from the existing web system in that it includes native component guidelines and documentation.

Accessibility played a huge part in the design and development of the app as well. Along with adhering to best design practice, user testing rounds were also conducted to ensure every function and feature of the app was universally accessible.

Check it out on the Apple App Store

or on Google Play Store they both good.

Designed by @zacdicko / Built by Transpire / Client Virgin Australia