A comprehensive eCommerce renewal on a global scale

Taking control of the customer experience

In the beginning of 2016, a project was launched to completely overhaul Finnair's booking system and web services. Finnair decided to set aside old legacy systems and architecture and take its digital experience into its own hands. Every aspect of the new Finnair booking flow and website was designed and developed from scratch, keeping the user’s needs at the core.

Our on-site team of experts was part of the process from the start, from planning and concepting to user research, and from visual and content design to analytics and technical implementation. The team behind the service is made up of Finnair’s in-house designers and developers, and consultants from multiple vendors.

User experience redesigned

Together with the Finnair team, we set out to create a customer experience that’s easier, smoother, and faster than anything we’ve seen, a simple yet effective flight and ancillary booking service that would significantly boost growth in digital sales.

The project was led by design and informed by data and metrics from the earliest prototypes. By building a completely new service of Finnair’s own, rather than relying on third-party providers, the agile team could design, test, and iterate new features quickly and cost-efficiently.

Developing a future-proof service

The new Finnair.com took shape through an ongoing service design process with qualitative user research, constant prototyping, instant validation through online tests, and buy-in validation from the stakeholders.

The service uses a new enterprise content management system, and our content designers worked closely together with the team to audit and migrate existing content as well as re-concept and design new content for the needs of the new website.

The service is built on a new microservice architecture running in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, through continuous developments and deployments by the agile team. Content is separated from the presentation and the user experience is kept smooth with Javascript applications. Global delivery is ensured with a global content delivery network (CDN), and the system is integrated into various – both Finnair’s own and global – backend systems.

As a result, Finnair’s eCommerce platform now supports service performance and availability, and flexibility to create UI and services that adapt to changing business and user needs over time.

Effortlessness and fluency accelerating the conversion

Buying flights should be effortless, which is why each step in the booking flow was designed to reduce the user’s cognitive load. Regardless of the device or if the user is navigating with a screen reader or other assistive technology, the experience is seamless.

All important information is easy to take in at a glance at each step. We cut down on the legalese and industry jargon throughout the website to ensure that all the information the user needs is easy to find and understand. Comparing dates, prices, and ticket options is easy, and confirming and paying for the purchase only takes a few moments with modern payment methods like Apple Pay.

The results of the new booking flow have been clear – compared to the old mobile booking flow, conversion and sales have increased dramatically, some KPIs even multiplied in comparison to the previous solution.