How usability testing helped refine corporate travel management

We took some of this wisdom to heart when redesigning the user interface ofAmadeus cytric Travel & Expense , our corporate travel solution. By conducting extensive usability tests with participants who had absolutely no experience with the solution we were able to vastly improve the user interface (UI). Participants were given just a little information about the functionalities of the solution and were told to work on randomised scenarios without any guidance from lab staff.

Some of the tasks the testers were asked to undertake included booking a flight that complied with travel policy, looking for hotels near a given address, and issuing an expense report. During the tests, they were encouraged to ‘think out loud’ while describing the tasks and various elements of the solution.

After the scenario sessions, participants were asked to give feedback and fill out a SUMI (Software Usability Measurement Inventory) questionnaire, which asks them to rate the quality of their use experience in terms of acceptance, motivation, trust, intuition, ease of understanding, and training needs. "In some areas there’s too much text information I have to read...“, “The lists should be better structured – we need important information at a glance”. These were just a few of the more critical comments we received through the questionnaire.

Recommendations

With all of this information at hand, our usability experts sat down, crunched the data, brainstormed, and delivered recommendations on how we could improve the solution’s usability. Our software designers then got to work implementing these recommendations.

Now, we’ve refined the user interface of the solution and created what we think is an innovative corporate travel management tool that ensures our customers stay ahead of the curve.  With more intuitive features, including a redesigned login page, application header and footer, personal portal, travel arranger dashboard, and hotel workflow as well as many new UI features, Amadeus cytric Travel & Expense offers business travellers a fantastic user experience.

At the end of the day, all of these improvements make corporate travel management more efficient and ultimately improve the experience for any employee travelling for business.

Stay tuned for more on how Amadeus is shaping the future of business travel at the Amadeus cytric Travel & Expense website or send us a message if you’d like to learn more.