IBM iX
Air Canada: AI-Driven Research & Loyalty Personalization
2020
About the Project
Air Canada sought to seamlessly integrate the Aeroplan loyalty program into its mobile and web experiences, ensuring a frictionless user experience for members. This initiative also involved automating research workflows to enhance the efficiency of customer insights gathering, improving decision-making across digital touchpoints.
Challenge
Complex Aeroplan integration, requiring seamless transitions for existing members.
Need for automation in UX research, reducing manual effort in data collection and synthesis.
Improving the Aeroplan onboarding experience, ensuring higher customer adoption.
Optimizing the points redemption process, making it more intuitive and user-friendly.
Solution
Designed an optimized onboarding flow, making it easier for users to link Aeroplan with Air Canada accounts.
Developed research automation workflows, streamlining customer insights gathering through transcription-driven analysis.
Enhanced the Aeroplan points redemption UI, improving navigation and usability.
Conducted usability testing and iterative design improvements, refining the experience based on customer feedback.
Impact
Increased engagement with the Aeroplan loyalty program, improving customer retention.
Reduced manual UX research workload, automating insights collection and synthesis.
Improved user satisfaction, making Aeroplan onboarding and redemption faster and more intuitive.
Strengthened Air Canada’s customer insights pipeline, ensuring data-driven product enhancements.
Air Canada: AI-Driven Research & Loyalty Personalization
With the acquisition of Aeroplan, Air Canada needed a seamless and user-friendly loyalty program integration. The challenge was ensuring that the new design met the needs of diverse users, from frequent flyers to first-time members.
To guide this transition, I led user research and testing, ensuring that onboarding and redemption were intuitive and effortless. The participant panel of 64 frequent flyers allowed us to identify usability pain points early and iterate rapidly.
A key innovation was automating research insights using AI-powered transcription, significantly reducing analysis time while improving feedback accuracy. We also optimized key features like Family Pooling, Pay with Points, and Seat Maps, ensuring seamless functionality.
By integrating research automation, streamlining user flows, and leveraging real-world user insights, we created a smoother, more engaging loyalty experience—driving adoption and increasing satisfaction among Aeroplan members.
Sponsor Users
Frequent Flyers & Aeroplan Members – A panel of 64 recruited frequent flyers provided critical insights that shaped improvements in usability and engagement.
Air Canada Loyalty & Digital Teams – Gained deeper customer insights through automation.
Product Design Team
UX Researchers
Product Managers
Designers
Developers
My Contributions
Led targeted research and iterative prototyping to refine design iterations.
Metrics
Conducted 64 user interviews with frequent flyer sponsor users to gain insights and validate onboarding improvements.
Tools
Mailchimp Otter.AI UserTesting.com Figma InVision
