Air canada

Air Canada is Canada’s largest airline and one of the world’s leading travel brands, serving millions of loyalty members across Aeroplan and ancillary programs. Committed to elevating every touchpoint, Air Canada sought to rebuild its loyalty portal to improve navigation, engagement, and internal onboarding efficiency.

When Air Canada decided to rebuild its loyalty platform for over five million members, they engaged Appnovation to uncover critical UX barriers, define improvements, and accelerate adoption. As the lead strategist and researcher, I oversaw usability testing, stakeholder interviews, and rapid issue resolution—transforming a cumbersome site into a highly intuitive, brand-strengthening experience.

Improve agent workflow: Ensure key loyalty system features are discoverable and easy to use for call center staff. Boost agent adoption: Increase platform usage through a more intuitive interface designed for call center needs. Streamline agent onboarding: Equip call center staff with clear workflows for assisting Aeroplan members efficiently. Resolve high-severity issues rapidly: Leverage testing data to prioritize and fix the biggest pain points affecting agent productivity.

Complex IA: Call centre staff struggled to adobe the new software interface with many calls resulting in failure to action. Fragmented onboarding: Call center agents lacked a consistent process to guide new and existing members though their enquiry. Tight timeline: The roll out was quick and required validation and implementation to be adopted without extensive re-training.

I led a three-pronged discovery and validation cycle: 1. Test-script design & participant recruitment ◦ Developed a bespoke usability script covering 12 core loyalty tasks. ◦ Recruited 8 representative members across frequent-flyer tiers. 2. Four moderated testing sessions ◦ Observed participants as they navigated seat upgrades, points redemption, and account settings. ◦ Logged 47 unique usability issues—each severity-rated for prioritization. 3. Stakeholder interviews & agent shadowing ◦ Conducted in-depth interviews with 6 call center managers and front-line agents. ◦ Mapped agent workflows, identified 5 key onboarding gaps, and recommended streamlined scripts. 4. Rapid iteration & hand-off ◦ Synthesised findings into a prioritized backlog. ◦ Partnered with design and engineering leads to resolve the top 20 high-impact issues within four days. ◦ Delivered a detailed style guide and interaction pattern library for continued consistency.

47 usability issues identified: during just 2 intensive testing sessions conducted in Montreal and Vancouver, providing a comprehensive view of system challenges in a remarkably short timeframe. We were able to make changes over night to retest with participants. User testing as change management: By including call center staff in our testing process, we not only gathered valuable insights but also fostered buy-in. Agents felt heard and valued, increasing their willingness to adopt the new system. This participatory approach created champions within the organization who helped drive adoption among their peers.