Chris Huitt - Portfolio

CHRIS HUITT

Case Study

British Airways Mobile App

Redesigning a veterinary clinic's website to turn scattered information into a clear path from discovery to booking.

Timeline

Sept–Dec 2025 (11 weeks)

Role

Solo designer (UX research, IA, interaction design, UI)

Context

Graduate coursework — HCI Certificate

The Problem

BA became a premium airline experience that stopped at the terminal

British Airways' mobile app experience fell short of the prestigious, historic brand. The homepage offered no inspiration, no clear path to key information pages, and minimal conversion points. Navigation buried essential features behind a hamburger menu with over a dozen flat options. When a traveler needed to manage their trip, change a seat, add baggage, or view flight details — the app pushed them out to a mobile browser, breaking trust at exactly the wrong moment.

Thus I asked

How might we redesign the British Airways app to inspire travelers to book, build confidence through an in-app trip management experience, and make core tasks effortless?

The solution

Integrated booking in-app, added trip management, and built a home screen that finally does its job

I replaced the browser-based flow with a native end-to-end experience, built on BA's own brand system.

[ Your strongest mockup — desktop + mobile, homepage or appointment flow.

This is the money shot. Make it big. ]

discovery

Every path through the app ended at a browser window

I ran a heuristic evaluation across the full traveler journey: opening the app, searching, booking, and managing trips. As a recent BA user myself, I already felt where the friction was. The evaluation confirmed it.

I also built a journey map for James Stanton — a 30-year-old consultant who flies for work weekly and depends on the app from booking through landing. Mapping his experience across five stages showed exactly where the app lacked in good usability and where the opportunity was.

Insight 01

The front desk is the bottleneck

Most calls are routine — appointment requests, hours, directions. Without online booking, every interaction hits the front desk, overwhelming staff during business hours and losing after-hours demand entirely.

Insight 02

The website is invisible and outdated

Low search visibility and 10-year-old content means clients either can't find the site or don't trust it when they do. The practice's warmth and quality don't come through online.

Insight 03

There is no path from interest to action

No online appointment request. No clear CTAs. Service pages lack the digestible content that helps someone evaluate and commit. Visitors stall and leave.

sketches to hi-fi

Redesigning what was broken, building what was missing

I sketched directions for a homepage worth opening, then built out the screens BA never had: a full booking flow and trip management. From there, I moved into v1 high-fidelity mockups in Figma using BA's exact Pantone colours and typeface, so the redesign read as an evolution of the brand, not a reskin.

High-traffic services lead

Wellness exams and vaccinations drive the majority of appointments. The layout leads with those instead of treating all services equally, which matches actual client behavior.

Single conversion path

Every section funnels toward the appointment request. The CTA appears in the hero, inline with services, and at the page bottom so it’s always within reach, never buried.

Content builds trust, then asks

The scroll follows a natural decision sequence: what we offer, why families trust us, how to get started. The visitor builds confidence before they're asked to commit.

usability testing

Two users, one task, and the changes I didn't expect to make

I ran a task-based usability study with two participants: book a round-trip flight from London to Lisbon for a same-day business meeting. To benchmark the redesign, participants completed the same task on my BA prototype and on the Virgin Atlantic app. I synthesised the findings using a KJ affinity analysis, grouping observations into four themes.

High-traffic services lead

Wellness exams and vaccinations drive the majority of appointments. The layout leads with those instead of treating all services equally, which matches actual client behavior.

Single conversion path

Every section funnels toward the appointment request. The CTA appears in the hero, inline with services, and at the page bottom so it’s always within reach, never buried.

Content builds trust, then asks

The scroll follows a natural decision sequence: what we offer, why families trust us, how to get started. The visitor builds confidence before they're asked to commit.

Key Design Decisions

Five calls that defined the redesign

Every decision here came from somewhere: the heuristic evaluation, the user journey, sketching, or usability testing. These five had the most impact.

Site-wide CTAs for appointment booking

The old homepage was a dead end. The redesign opens with a cycling hero that rotates through travel contexts, making users picture their next trip before they've touched a form field. Scroll down and every element earns its place: search to book now, upcoming trips to re-engage, Avios balance to remind users what they can spend, and curated deals that turn a casual scroll into a conversion.

An integrated appointment request form

The original app buried 12 options inside a hamburger menu. I replaced it with a five-tab bar built around the tasks users actually perform: Home, My Trips, Book, Profile, and Avios. Always visible, always within thumb reach

A dedicated New Clients hub

Tapping 'Manage My Booking' used to open Safari, breaking context and trust. The redesign replaces that with a native Trip Detail page: flight status, check-in countdown, passenger details, and actions for seats, bags, and changes, all with clear hierarchy and nothing leaving the app.

Clear typographic hierarchy for the most time sensitive moments

The original flight detail screen treated everything equally: times, terminals, booking references, ticket numbers all at the same size. I built a deliberate hierarchy where departure and arrival times dominate, airport codes, gates, and terminals sit just below, and secondary details stay smaller and lower. A user rushing to their gate can glance and know exactly when and where in two seconds.

In-app trip management that never breaks context

There was no native booking flow. I designed seven screens from search to confirmation, each built to reduce uncertainty: colour-coded outbound/inbound tags, a persistent running total, and a transparent price breakdown. The user always knows where they are and what comes next.

The Redesigned Experience

Every screen, from 'where should I go?' to 'you're booked'

To view live prototypes, please visit this site on desktop.

What I'd carry foward

Dead ends are data, not failure

I explored many directions for the IA and homepage layout most were dead ends.

But realising why they failed clarified what the design actually needed: a single,

clear conversion path that mirrors how clients think, not how the clinic is organized.

The dead ends weren't waste; they were how I found the through-line.

Benchmarking agaisnt a competitor changed how I designed

Running the same task on my prototype and the Virgin Atlantic app gave me a reference point I wouldn't have had otherwise. It showed me where my designs held up and where they fell short, like the inbound/outbound confusion that Virgin handled more clearly. Comparative testing forced me to defend every decision against a real, shipped product.

What a second round of testing would’ve provided

With more time, I would have conducted usability testing with actual clinic clients,

both new and returning, to validate whether the branching appointment form and

the New Clients hub actually reduce the front-desk bottleneck. The design is

research-informed, but it's not yet research-validated. That's the gap I'd close next.

CHRIS HUITT

Case Study

British Airways Mobile App

Redesigning a flagship airline's mobile app to inspire travel,

streamline booking, and bring trip management back where it

belongs - inside the app.

Timeline

Sept–Dec 2025 (11 weeks)

Role

Solo designer (UX research, IA, interaction design, UI)

Context

Graduate coursework — HCI Certificate

The Problem

BA became a premium airline experience that stopped at the terminal

Thus I asked

How might we redesign the British Airways app to inspire travelers to book, build confidence through an in-app trip management experience, and make core tasks effortless?

The solution

Integrated booking in-app, added trip management, and built a home screen that finally does its job

I replaced the browser-based flow with a native end-to-end experience, built on BA's own brand system.

[ Your strongest mockup — desktop + mobile, homepage or appointment flow.

This is the money shot. Make it big. ]

discovery

Every path through the app ended at a browser window

Insight 01

The front desk is the bottleneck

Insight 02

The website is invisible and outdated

Low search visibility and 10-year-old content means clients either can't find the site or don't trust it when they do. The practice's warmth and quality don't come through online.

Insight 03

There is no path from interest to action

No online appointment request. No clear CTAs. Service pages lack the digestible content that helps someone evaluate and commit. Visitors stall and leave.

sketches to hi-fi

Redesigning what was broken, building what was missing

High-traffic services lead

Wellness exams and vaccinations drive the majority of appointments. The layout leads with those instead of treating all services equally, which matches actual client behavior.

Single conversion path

Every section funnels toward the appointment request. The CTA appears in the hero, inline with services, and at the page bottom so it’s always within reach, never buried.

Content builds trust, then asks

The scroll follows a natural decision sequence: what we offer, why families trust us, how to get started. The visitor builds confidence before they're asked to commit.

usability testing

Two users, one task, and the changes I didn't expect to make

High-traffic services lead

Wellness exams and vaccinations drive the majority of appointments. The layout leads with those instead of treating all services equally, which matches actual client behavior.

Single conversion path

Every section funnels toward the appointment request. The CTA appears in the hero, inline with services, and at the page bottom so it’s always within reach, never buried.

Content builds trust, then asks

The scroll follows a natural decision sequence: what we offer, why families trust us, how to get started. The visitor builds confidence before they're asked to commit.

Key Design Decisions

Five calls that defined the redesign

Every decision here came from somewhere: the heuristic evaluation, the user journey, sketching, or usability testing. These five had the most impact.

Site-wide CTAs for appointment booking

An integrated appointment request form

A dedicated New Clients hub

Clear typographic hierarchy for the most time sensitive moments

In-app trip management that never breaks context

The Redesigned Experience

Every screen, from 'where should I go?' to 'you're booked'

What I'd carry foward

Dead ends are data, not failure

I explored many directions for the IA and homepage layout most were dead ends.

But realising why they failed clarified what the design actually needed: a single,

clear conversion path that mirrors how clients think, not how the clinic is organized.

The dead ends weren't waste; they were how I found the through-line.

Benchmarking agaisnt a competitor changed how I designed

What a second round of testing would’ve provided

With more time, I would have conducted usability testing with actual clinic clients,

both new and returning, to validate whether the branching appointment form and

the New Clients hub actually reduce the front-desk bottleneck. The design is

research-informed, but it's not yet research-validated. That's the gap I'd close next.

CHRIS HUITT

Case Study

British Airways Mobile App

Redesigning a flagship airline's mobile app to inspire travel,

streamline booking, and bring trip management back where it

belongs - inside the app.

Timeline

Sept–Dec 2025 (11 weeks)

Role

Solo designer (UX research, IA, interaction design, UI)

Context

Graduate coursework — HCI Certificate

The Problem

BA became a premium airline experience that stopped at the terminal

Thus I asked

How might we redesign the British Airways app to inspire travelers to book, build confidence through an in-app trip management experience, and make core tasks effortless?

The solution

Integrated booking in-app, added trip management, and built a home screen that finally does its job

I replaced the browser-based flow with a native end-to-end experience, built on BA's own brand system.

[ Your strongest mockup — desktop + mobile, homepage or appointment flow.

This is the money shot. Make it big. ]Options

A single phone mockup at large scale with callout annotations pointing to key design decisions

A side-by-side before/after of the old BA app vs your redesign for that screen

A close-up crop of your most detailed screen (no device frame, just the UI filling the space)

discovery

Every path through the app ended at a browser window

Insight 01

The front desk is the bottleneck

Insight 02

The website is invisible and outdated

Low search visibility and 10-year-old content means clients either can't find the site or don't trust it when they do. The practice's warmth and quality don't come through online.

Insight 03

There is no path from interest to action

No online appointment request. No clear CTAs. Service pages lack the digestible content that helps someone evaluate and commit. Visitors stall and leave.

sketches to hi-fi

Redesigning what was broken, building what was missing

High-traffic services lead

Wellness exams and vaccinations drive the majority of appointments. The layout leads with those instead of treating all services equally, which matches actual client behavior.

Single conversion path

Every section funnels toward the appointment request. The CTA appears in the hero, inline with services, and at the page bottom so it’s always within reach, never buried.

Content builds trust, then asks

The scroll follows a natural decision sequence: what we offer, why families trust us, how to get started. The visitor builds confidence before they're asked to commit.

usability testing

Two users, one task, and the changes I didn't expect to make

I ran a task-based usability study with two participants: book a round-trip flight from London to Lisbon for a same-day business meeting. To benchmark the redesign, participants completed the same task on my BA prototype and on the Virgin Atlantic app. I synthesized the findings using a KJ affinity analysis, grouping observations into four themes.

High-traffic services lead

Wellness exams and vaccinations drive the majority of appointments. The layout leads with those instead of treating all services equally, which matches actual client behavior.

Single conversion path

Every section funnels toward the appointment request. The CTA appears in the hero, inline with services, and at the page bottom so it’s always within reach, never buried.

Content builds trust, then asks

The scroll follows a natural decision sequence: what we offer, why families trust us, how to get started. The visitor builds confidence before they're asked to commit.

Key Design Decisions

Five calls that defined the redesign

Every decision here came from somewhere: the heuristic evaluation, the user journey, sketching, or usability testing. These five had the most impact.

A homepage that makes you want to book your next trip and lets you book it on the spot

Persistent navigation built around the items users need at home and at the gate

In-app trip management that never breaks context

Tapping 'Manage My Booking' used to open Safari, breaking context and eroding trust. The redesign brings everything into a native Trip Detail page with clear typographic hierarchy: flight status and check-in countdown are immediately scannable, while secondary actions like seats changes are grouped by priority. No browser, no friction, no lost context.

Clear typographic hierarchy for the most time sensitive moments

A complete booking flow designed for confidence

The Redesigned Experience

Every screen, from 'where should I go?' to 'you're booked'

What I'd carry foward

Test earlier, simplify sooner

My first iteration of the homepage tried to do too much. Inspiration, booking, upcoming trips, deals, and promotions were all competing for attention. Usability testing caught that the quick-book feature I was most proud of was completely missed by the two of the three participants. I learned that ambition in a redesign needs to be tempered by real user behavior. The strongest version of a screen is often the one where you've removed the most, not added the most.

Benchmarking against a competitor changed how I designed

What a second round of testing would’ve provided

With more time, I would have run a second round of usability testing on the refined designs to validate that the homepage simplification actually resolved the confusion, and measuring task completion time against the original app. The redesign is research-informed and test-iterated, but closing that loop with a second study would have made the findings conclusive rather than directional.