Responsive design testing meets quality goal for Aberdeen Airport's new website

Background

Up until January 2013, Aberdeen International Airport operated under the BAA brand. However, following the decentralisation of the Group, a decision was made towards the end of 2013 to end-of-life the Group-wide CMS. Aberdeen International needed to launch their own web solution as part of their individual e-commerce and digital strategy by 24th March 2014, before the shared CMS was switched off.

After reviewing hosting agreements and third party contracts, they began working with an agency to carry out the task of moving their web content to a new, open source and locally managed CMS during the middle of December 2013. This meant that the airport had around 3 months to achieve a seamless transition.

In addition to the requirement to move to a new CMS, the airport recognised a need to make their site mobile responsive; in other words show different layouts and scale depending on factors such as the size and rotation of the screen. Jason Stewart, E-Commerce Manager at Aberdeen International Airport, was very aware that more and more customers were visiting their website on mobile devices, and that e-commerce revenues and passenger satisfaction could be affected if they did not move to a responsive solution.

“It’s no secret that the mobile market is growing. In 2013 we saw that 35.1% of our total web traffic had come from a mobile device, up from around 32% the year before. We needed to be sure that we could deliver our content to mobile devices in an efficient and optimised way”, Stewart commented.

Selecting Sogeti

Jason Stewart was already aware of the Capgemini and Sogeti brand, so knew that the Group had the expertise and scalability to deliver. However, it was a recommendation from another client – a partner of Aberdeen International - that provided a key basis for Jason’s decision, and gave him the confidence he needed to work with Sogeti.

He commented, “Having had a recommendation from another Sogeti customer, it didn’t make any sense to consider other options. Sogeti’s ability to understand our brief with the required attention to detail was clear from the outset. The fact that Sogeti Studio was on hand to deliver within a tight timeframe made them stand out from companies we have worked with in the past”.

Solution

Sogeti was brought in to test each individual element of the Aberdeen International Airport website for responsiveness, providing assurance that all of those elements rendered as they should across different devices. The work was carried out within Sogeti Studio, Sogeti’s local UK web and mobile testing lab, and encompassed over 100 pages plus some third party integrations, all of which were tested across Apple and Android devices.

Sogeti staff worked closely with the airport’s third party development team through their collaboration tool, Sifter, to regularly provide updates on any elements that needed attention. “Communication was smooth between the two teams and Sogeti fed well into the project. Everyone was kept in the loop and each issue was assigned an owner and reference number, which made it easy to understand where we were when it came to the project update calls. I was pleased with all of the interaction I saw”, said Stewart.

Results

The team from Sogeti Studio managed to turn around the project from inception to completion within just 10 working days. In addition to uncovering how responsiveness impacted the site and highlighting any flaws that occurred in the way the responsive pages rendered, Sogeti also exposed notable unknown issues around user experience, navigation and route map, which turned out to be incompatible with the latest version of iOS. The identification of these additional problems will help Aberdeen International to improve their site in the longer term.

“Sogeti helped us to deliver a better product – one that has been tested and implemented properly. The fast turnaround definitely helped to save us time, and we also saved money when compared to using internal resources”, said Stewart.

Sogeti’s work has allowed Aberdeen International Airport to meet their launch deadline, so they can focus on; generating visitors to the website; fulfilling their proven customer satisfaction; and realising revenue through e-commerce.

Conclusion

Aberdeen International Airport’s new, responsive website went live on time and on budget, with a seamless transition. Jason Stewart concluded: “I am completely satisfied with my decision to choose Sogeti to test our responsive website, and would say that the project has definitely been a success. We would be more than happy to recommend Sogeti Studio to other airports or organisations looking to undertake similar projects”.