Ticket Booking PLatform
IRCTC - Ticket Booking Platform
This was a class project completed as part of my Information Architecture coursework. I collaborated with a team of three students to evaluate and redesign the information architecture of the IRCTC website, one of India’s most heavily used railways booking platform. The project focused on improving navigation clarity, content structure, and findability for both new and returning users.
Timeline
8 weeks, from research and evaluation to sitemap redesign and wireframing.
Background
IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) is the primary platform used by millions of users in India to book train tickets, check schedules, order meals, and manage travel-related services. Despite its wide usage, the website suffers from cluttered navigation, poor hierarchy, and difficulty locating critical actions such as ticket cancellation and group booking. This project aimed to restructure the site’s information architecture to make high-frequency tasks easier to find and the overall experience more intuitive.
This category details the step-by-step approach taken during the project, including research, planning, design, development, testing, and optimization phases.
Research & Planning
We began by analyzing the existing IRCTC website to identify navigation clutter, unclear hierarchy, and difficult-to-find actions such as ticket cancellation and group booking. We conducted heuristic analysis, content inventory, and defined key user tasks to understand where users struggled most.
Design & Prototyping
Using card sorting and tree testing, we evaluated how users grouped content and navigated key tasks. Insights from these studies informed a revised sitemap with clearer categories, simplified navigation paths, and better prioritization of high-frequency actions.
Implementation
We translated the redesigned information architecture into wireframes, focusing on critical flows such as ticket cancellation and customer support. The wireframes emphasized visibility of important actions, reduced navigation depth, and clearer labeling.
Testing & Optimization
Tree testing results revealed major findability issues in the original structure, particularly for ticket cancellation and group booking. Based on these findings, we iterated on the sitemap and navigation structure to improve task success rates and reduce time to completion.
The resulting AI-powered scheduling app offers a seamless user experience, allowing individuals and businesses to effortlessly manage their schedules.
Improved Navigation Structure
Reorganized content into clearer, well-defined categories to reduce clutter and cognitive load.
Simplified Key Tasks
Made high-priority actions such as booking, cancellation, and customer support easier to locate and access.
Clear Information Hierarchy
Designed a sitemap and wireframes that surface critical information early and minimize unnecessary navigation steps.
Here, the outcomes and achievements of the project are highlighted, including user feedback, adoption rates, and industry recognition.
Better Findability of Core Tasks
Revised navigation improved users’ ability to locate key actions more quickly.
Reduced Navigation Complexity
A cleaner structure helped users move through the site with fewer clicks and less confusion.
Validated IA Decisions
User testing and tree test results supported the effectiveness of the redesigned information architecture.