Hawaiian Airlines wanted to create "The official app for the Hawai‘ian islands." An app built for both visitors and Hawaiian residents that could guide everyone to the best spots across all of the islands. A tool that could reward HawaiianMiles loyalty program members by giving them a dashboard on their balances, engaging them to establish travel goals, and assisting them in locating merchants that offer HawaiianMiles credits with purchases.
Do the groundwork
The tenfour UX team began the engagement by studying log files of HA’s customer base, reviewing market surveys, business goals, and the existing infrastructure of the loyalty program. We then analyzed the top dozen free and paid apps for Hawai‘i and documented trends in feature sets, the minimum baseline functionality needed to compete, as well as opportunity areas to own.
The tenfour UX team began the engagement by studying log files of HA’s customer base, reviewing market surveys, business goals, and the existing infrastructure of the loyalty program. We then analyzed the top dozen free and paid apps for Hawai‘i and documented trends in feature sets, the minimum baseline functionality needed to compete, as well as opportunity areas to own.
A combination of these efforts informed a triad of key personas and a prioritization of goals and key pathways. Multiple approaches of content and feature organization were explored and then wireframed to paper-prototype the experience – eventually resulting in a 70+ page blueprint of the entire application and its corresponding CMS. This specification document was heavily notated with functional and technical notes and effectively became the keystone for connecting and guiding our experience, technical, and design teams through the buildout.
Aim locally
Our content team worked in tandem with the design/development efforts to scout talented island-based writers and bloggers to create original content for the app that would be on-brand in style and voice. The approach, legal agreements, and workflow orchestration for juggling numerous writers was leveraged from tenfour’s previous experience supporting Air New Zealand’s suite of apps which collectively tout thousands of custom entries.
Our content team worked in tandem with the design/development efforts to scout talented island-based writers and bloggers to create original content for the app that would be on-brand in style and voice. The approach, legal agreements, and workflow orchestration for juggling numerous writers was leveraged from tenfour’s previous experience supporting Air New Zealand’s suite of apps which collectively tout thousands of custom entries.
Our dedicated Online Content Editor manages and plans the editorial schedule, matching writers with content requests, pitching recommended spots to cover, and editing work prior to final publishing. Through customer insights, we learned that vacationers typically plan holidays 2-4 months before traveling. This has guided us to include distant event listings that are relevant to the travel planning process.
Fly high
The launch was well received by both local residents and vacationers. Choosing to deploy on a mobile web platform ensured that all key smartphones were supported out of the gate without the initial investment of native application development. Smart implementation of HTML5 and CSS3 ensured that a variety of screen widths would have optimal experiences and jQuery mobile added transition animation and swiping gestures for navigating photography.
The launch was well received by both local residents and vacationers. Choosing to deploy on a mobile web platform ensured that all key smartphones were supported out of the gate without the initial investment of native application development. Smart implementation of HTML5 and CSS3 ensured that a variety of screen widths would have optimal experiences and jQuery mobile added transition animation and swiping gestures for navigating photography.
Despite the lack of paid media advertising to support the launch, usage is high and engagement has been strong with a solid 40% of visitors returning on a monthly basis. Usage across the board is above average with trends indicating growth in adoption.
Behind the Scenes
Initial high-fidelity wireframes
Onsite user testing of prototype
Due diligence
