Delta Airlines uses microsites to maintain and deploy their various Amex campaign pages. They wanted to update content more frequently without production delays while also minimizing design & development costs.

In the summer of 2017, I worked with DSG Interactive of RR Donnelley to create a solution for Delta Airlines’ needs. Making on the fly updates to AMEX campaign landing pages and various materials was proving to be a costly process for Delta. Additionally, maintaining and creating new campaign materials tended to accelerate over time. Delta Airlines was looking for a solution to easily update existing campaign material and to reduce the maintenance costs as much as possible.

DIRECTION

We listened to the dilemmas that the Delta Airlines team had been experiencing with deploying new campaigns and making timely updates. Through data collection and analysis, we designed a CMS based Admin Portal to achieve both goals and enable the team to be sefl sufficient.

MY DESIGN PROCESS

I set about gathering all background details and information from the DSG and Delta teams. I worked directly with Bhawini Naik, Les Borowski, and Eric Steinhilber to gather all relevant information to create three documents: a Competitive Analysis review, a User Workflow diagram, and Wireframes for the Admin Site. I handled all of the UX Design work for this aspect of the project, and collaborated with the Project Manager, Lead Developer, and UI Designer to present, iterate, and finalize the designs with Delta Airlines over a short timeframe.

Scope

  • UX Analysis & Design
  • Interaction Design
  • Strategy

Deliverables

  • Competitive Analysis Documents
  • User Workflows
  • Admin Portal Wireframes

Timeline

  • 6 Weeks

Tools

  • Sketch
  • InVision
  • Adobe Suite
  • Keynote

PHASE ONE

We set about planning a custom CMS solution for a Phase One rollout based upon the functionality Delta Airlines required. I helped to document the Technical Discovery Sessions and Functional Specifications with the Project Manager and Lead Developer. We wanted to be sure to engage the client within the discovery and design processes with so all major and minor details for the proposed Admin Dashboard were accounted for and understood by all teams. The Delta Airlines team provided a list of Likes, Pain Points, and a Wish List for the future of designing and managing landing pages. It was vital for myself and the team to completely understand the ideal process entailed by the Delta team needed to create, maintain, and deploy landing pages.

PUBLIC FORWARD FACING MICROSITE(S)

Delta maintains a number of microsites for a variety of their Amex cards. The Admin Dashboard will enable them to manage all of these microsites and the many permutations.

  • These are not tied directly with Amex.
  • Once a user has gone through the process (funnel), they will submit an application on the Amex site.
  • Ideally would like to see up to eight (8) card offers on a single page.
  • Would like the option for variations for layouts of 2, 4, 6 & 8 cards on a page.
  • Requires multiple pages for tracking. Cannot control the success rate of DM at the moment.
  • Need to be ADA compliant.

NEW AMEX CARD APPLICATION

New and Existing members may sign up for additional Amex cards. Card offers will be in groups of two (2), One for Personal (Standard) and one for Business (Open), for the following (4) four levels:

  1. Gold
  2. Platinum
  3. Reserved
  4. TBD (Fall 2017)

USERS SIGN IN VIA

Typically Delta Amex Card users were signing into the front end of microsites with:

  • Email & Password
  • Skymiles Number & Last Name

The Delta team was looking for recommendations to streamline the sign in process and conversion funnels. We made recommendations to:

  • Prefill Data
  • Simplify User Workflow

REPORTING

  • Currently need to go through a third party to pull reports.
  • Delta would like to be able to pull reports at will.
  • Data required in reports: Who clicked offer, total/unique clicks, click through’s to Amex.
  • Is Amex able to provide confirmation if user completed an application.
  • Delta will provide sample reports of what they currently receive from agency.
  • Currently not getting a read on the comparisons of the various offers and reactions to offers.

FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATIONS

ADMIN DASHBOARD

The Delta Airlines team needed the following functionality within the Admin Dashboard to properly build, maintain, and deploy new Amex microsites based on specific program criteria.

  • Create New Public Microsites
  • Upload & Manage: Images, HTML/CSS, and Content Layouts.
  • Custom & Unique Microsite URLs.
  • Analytics & Metrics – Either Adobe Analytics or Google Analytics
  • Reporting – Consumer Behavior Metrics.
  • Clean & Intuitive UX

SINGLE SIGN ON

It was important to streamline the sign in process for the Delta team. Coordinating with their IT team was necessary to design and build a functional Single Sign On experience.

  • We needed to know of any security restrictions and communicated with the involved parties to gather specifications.
  • We worked with Delta’s IT team to gain access to the current SSO in place, and details about the involved database connections and APIs.

USER ROLES REQUIRED

  • Administrators – create, edit, delete, publish by date and manage pages
  • Amex & Legal Admin – Receive Landing Pages and are able to provide revision iterations and comments. Along with only having access to this area of the Microsite CMS to which Delta will provide access.
  • Delta will provide a brief on the current Amex approval process.

PHASE ONE: DELIVERABLES

Incorporating findings from my UX Research and our Functional Specifications, I designed Wireframes for the Admin Dashboard and sample Landing Pages to demonstrate output and minimize production timelines and costs. Our objective was to gain approval from the Delta Airlines team to  develop and deploy our CMS solution in Phase Two.

Project Outcome

UX Deliverables

This was a short project in which my role was to quickly build the Competitive Analysis, User Workflow diagram, and Wireframes for the Admin Site. Delta signed off on this work and the team is now proceeding to the development phase.

Direct Results

The Delta Airlines’ team was pleased with our work, process, and deliverables. After a few minor revisions and housekeeping tasks, Phase Two was approved. The CMS Application moved to a formalized application development phase.

WORK SAMPLES

1. Delta Amex Card Competitive Analysis

2. Delta Amex Card User Workflows

3. Delta Amex Card Wireframes

4. Delta Amex Card Admin Portal

Please Note: These work samples are not for distribution.