National Express Launches New Web Portal
Background
National Express is the UK’s leading travel provider, with over 1 billion journeys made every year on its bus, train, light rail and express coach and airport operations.
The National Express group operates a number of travel services and companies and wanted a web portal that combined all of the services under a unified branded portal so that customers could plan their journeys more effectively and efficiently.
CADinteractive was appointed to deliver an engaging and interactive website that streamlined the various travel services that National Express operates.
Issues & Requirements
- National Express required a single website portal to unify its extensive portfolio of multi-branded travel services
- The portal had to direct users quickly and efficiently across the group of travel services
- National Express is currently undertaking a company wide re-brand, which will take months to roll out across all of the transport services
- The existing National Express coach website would be moved to a new domain, with the existing domain employed for the new portal which might confuse loyal coach customers
Recommendation
CADinteractive recommended the User Centred Design methodology to research, prototype and test the portal solution with end users. In order to ensure the business objectives were combined with the customers’ needs to create the optimum online experience for National Express.
Solution
CADinteractive performed a full discovery workshop to define key personas and user cases. Three wireframes prototypes were developed and tested remotely with nationwide users with coach, train and bus profiles.
The final version was developed to high fidelity and tested through lab based research to refine the layout, content and services. Changes to the site build were implemented and the brand was developed with National Express and CHI&Partners to meet portal requirements. The IA and branding were developed in tandem, then combined with client feedback and implemented.
Continuous testing, both remote and lab, ensured that coach visitors to the site would not find it difficult to navigate directly to the coach website.
Following extensive testing, CADinteractive refined the solutions and then delivered the site ready for Sunday’s launch.
Result
The site was successfully launched on Sunday 9th December, on time and to budget. CADinteractive’s proven approach to design, testing and build ensured the site was thoroughly tested and approved prior to launch.
An ongoing review process is in place along with continued multivariate testing.
Read about our User Testing or Design services or call us on 020 7228 0008
