The starting point
Amtrak serves 34 million riders a year, but its mobile app lacks the flexible search and booking patterns people are used to from modern travel platforms. I hypothesized that price-sensitive riders in particular struggle with the existing booking flow because fares are hidden behind repetitive date-by-date searches, making it hard to feel confident they've found a good deal.
Defining the Scope
Primary Goal: Seamless fare discover within existing date picker, no extra steps.
Supporting goals: Reducing booking time, increasing fare confidence/trust, simplify multi-date comparison
A clear task flow was designed to seamlessly introduce the fare calendar into the booking process, automatically surfacing price data during date selection rather than requiring extra steps, or back-and-forth workarounds By integrating the fare comparison step directly into the existing flow, the new interface reduced user effort and added value for both infrequent and regular users. The flow moved away from a single-path, sequential search, and towards a visually informative calendar that highlights daily lowest fares, similar to competitor norms.
Two flows were explored, but early design work and research showed users preferred tgransparent fare comparison over recommendations. The design focus narrowed down to focus solely on fare calendar experience Visualizing key screens and interactions from low-fidelity solidified the integration into the booking flow seamlessly to a polished end point.
Testing the Design
Eight Amtrak rider participated in an unmoderated prototype test, performing a round-trip booking task targeting flexible, low-fare dates. Testing was seamless, users interacted with prototype successfully.
Quantitative test results indicated high ease-of-use (4.25/5), strong decision confidence (4.5/5), and enthusiasm for future use of feature (4.9/5). All users completed task in under two minutes on average, well below the four-minute benchmark.
Feedback emphasized the calendar's native feel and confidence-building visual fare display. Final revisions included polishing filter/sort options in search results page, fine-tuning consistency of screens, and further aligning all screens to be as visually close to Amtrak as possible.
Researching the opportunity
5 rider interviews + 14-person survey revealed:
No round-trip price visibility = constant back-and-forth
Users expect calendar exploration, not linear probing
Analysis of Amtrak, Via rail, WanderU, Google Flights, and Kayak:
Most travel platforms allow users to compare prices across dates, before comitting, while Amtrak requires repeated searches
modern travel tools prioritize exploration and flexibility over rigid booking flows
Design the Flow
Early sketches mapped out a full-month calendar embedded with a date picker, displaying lowest dares below the date within the viewport. Iterating on these wireframes focused on keeping the Amtrak brand focus.
3 core wireframes highlighted:
minimum fares calendar view
select-a-date
post-selection summary
Visual design disabling unavailable dates, showing minimum necessary information, and adhering to Amtrak brand colors and typography standards.
Although a brand kit was not accessible, Figma plugins worked to match Amtrak's website and app brand styles as closely as possible.
Final Thoughts
Amtrak users need a more intuitive and flexible booking experience, moving beyond a basic, rigid, point-to-point app, toward a design aligned with broader travel industry standards. Challenges surfaced of limited real knowledge of Amtrak's behind-the-scenes, lack of stakeholder access, and few official design assets at time of project. Being adaptable under these constraints, and continuously basing decisions on the research grew stronger in my toolkit during this work. Considering earlier usability testing, and stakeholder involvement would improve project outcomes on future work. Reflected in these results is the high impact of even a small scope of feature enhancements for the user.
