Search Results on Flight Booking Websites: Displaying Departure and Return Flights on a Single Page vs Two Consecutive Pages

Abstract

Flight ticket booking engines on airline and online travel agency websites use two different designs to present roundtrip flight search results: some websites display outbound and return flights on a single page, while others show them on two consecutive pages. In our pilot experiment with 23 users we compared these two design options on a model flight booking website. Usability metrics like speed of performance and error rate were accompanied by eye-tracking and mouse-tracking indicators of cognitive load. The experiment produced mixed results: two-page design outperformed simultaneous presentation of outbound and inbound flights in terms of performance speed, but it also caused almost three times higher error rate and incurred a higher cognitive load compared to one-page design. Further research, with more users representing different age groups, different levels of task complexity, and analysis of users’ subjective preferences, is necessary.