Client:
Delta Airlines
The Brief:
- Make in-flight services available to passengers on their mobile devices.
- In-flight services are manual (food and drink service, summoning an attendant), or limited to the headrest entertainment console.
- Design a way for passengers to access these services through the existing Fly Delta app or website.
Must include features:
- Passengers can make a request for services or amenities by paging a flight attendant.
- Passengers can utilize the built-in entertainment displays to view movies, listen to music, play games, and view flight information.
- Passengers can purchase Wi-Fi on their devices.
- Passengers can shop duty-free through Delta SkyMiles® Marketplace and Sky Magazine.
Duration
3 weeksMy Team
- 4 person team
- UX Researcher,
UX Designer, - Content Strategist
My Roles
- Lead UX
- Research
- UI Design
My Responsibilities
- Surveys 54 Respondents
- International Interviews
- Personas
- Journey Map
- Over looked UI designs
- Display UI
- VR Design
- Usability Tests
- Affinity Mapping
- Business Model Canvas
Tools
- Sketch
- InVision
- Google Forms
Marker, Paper, pen, Whiteboard Methods
- Survey
- Phone Interviews
- Usability Tests
- Affinity Mapping
- Design Studio
- LoFi Wireframing
- HiFi Wireframing
- Content Strategy
The Problem
Passengers would like to request services and amenities but face anxiety in waiting for service and receiving items. Flight attendants would like to meet a passenger's needs in a timely matter, but find it difficult with the many passengers they must serve..
The Solution
Using new in-flight services embedded in the existing mobile app, flyers can contact flight attendants, request amenities, order food and drinks, shop online and enjoy their in-flight entertainment features. Their overall in-flight experience will be upgraded with seamless services and efficient payment, which both satisfy Delta’s business goals and its users needs.
Solution Design Features
Digital experience for amenities, entertainment and shopping
Order for other passengers
Easy digital payment combines with mileage points
Embeded functions for messaging and summoning attendants, flying map, language switch and waking-up
Duration
3 weeksMy Team
- 4 person team
- UX Researcher,
UX Designer, - Content Strategist
My Roles
- Lead UX
- Research
- UI Design
My Responsibilities
- Surveys 54 Respondents
- International Interviews
- Personas
- Journey Map
- Over looked UI designs
- Display UI
- VR Design
- Usability Tests
- Affinity Mapping
- Business Model Canvas
Tools
- Sketch
- InVision
- Google Forms
Marker, Paper, pen, Whiteboard Methods
- Survey
- Phone Interviews
- Usability Tests
- Affinity Mapping
- Design Studio
- LoFi Wireframing
- HiFi Wireframing
- Content Strategy
STORYBOARD
Research
The use case for this solution was straight forward. This would be an app for Delta passengers during a flight. However, to really understand a passenger's need, we needed to dig deeper, so we sought frequent flyers.
From administrating a survey and interviews, I was able to utilized many methods such as creating a charts, affinity mapping, and competitive/comparative analysis to find trends that would helped us in the development of our persona.
- 54 Survey Respondents
- 8 Interviews
Competitive Analysis
We wanted to see what features other airlines were providing in their current app.
From our user research, we identified the majority of passengers have mobile devices running either iOS or Android, so we sifted through app descriptions, screenshots, and reviews for apps on both the App Store and the Google Play Store.
For the competitive analysis, we evaluated every feature provided in the apps of four airlines both Pre-Flight and In-Flight and categorized the features that passengers would use in-flight.
Business Model Canvas
To get a better understanding of the company's needs and relationship with users I researched and created a Business Model Canvas. Influenced by their Value Proposition's motto "Building a better airline not just a bigger one" I focused on building a better user experience and app not a bigger one with too many features.
User Survey & Interviews
To give us a scope of what the problem was, we conducted a survey with 56 respondents from all over the world, with a main focus in the U.S. to learn more about our users. Here’s some of our findings:
We designed a survey with a screener that helped us to focus on those who flew more than 3 times in the past 2 years, on long flights (5+ hours). Below are some questions and answers we received.
Some questions we asked:
How much time do you typically spend on summoning attendants and waiting for your orders?
Tell me about the last time you tried to purchase a product and obtain service in-flight
What are the biggest pains or hardest part to that?
How often do you fly..
Do you use in-fight amenities and services
Our research revealed that nearly 28% of our users fly at least once a month and nearly 8% fly every 2 weeks. So why was it that almost 44% did not use amenities or in-flight services at all? We set out to find this out.
Affinity Mapping
I then conducted 8 follow-up interviews, seeking deeper insights. With the data and grouped into different categories we were able to create an affinity map, to find trends that would helped us in the development of our persona and focus on users primary needs. The three key findings were quality of in-flight service, inflight activities, payments
Main Findings
Most important factors to consider:
Focus on comfort
Fast and human-centered service
Convenient & broad selection
Easy payment
Better quality of built-in screen
Free/cheap WIFI
Reasons for preferring to use phone on a plane:
Familiarity of use
Movies, games and music
Convenience
Seamless experience among apps
Personas
Now that we have a better understanding of the users' needs based on our research, I profiled 3 personas. They represent the 3 main types of passengers.
By identifying our Primary user persona and two Secondary Personas we had a clearer understanding who we were actually crafting for, which helped us identify the users' needs and a foundation to work from to start designing a delightful experience for them.
Secondary Persona
Special Persona
Design Studio
Doing a quick design studio among team members is the best practice to conceiving ideas for new product.
Impact-effort Matrix
After the design studio, we came up with multiple ideas. In order to prioritize and narrow them down, we used an impact-effort matrix. We would focus more on high impact, low effort areas and less on high effort and low impact areas.
A/B Testing
Once we finished prioritizing ideas, I conducted 3 rounds of A/B testings using paper prototypes to help decide which design layout to work on. Users preferred to use layout A because the interface was simpler and clearer. However, they were confused with the bottom IN-FLIGHT tab among other tabs.
Video Footage of User Testing
Main Findings
Language symbol is not so clear
Change hamburger symbol into account symbol
Regroup and change 2 lines of bottom tabs into 1 line
Preference to see images and be able to choose fast
Main Findings
Language symbol is not so clear
Change hamburger symbol into account symbol
Regroup and change 2 lines of bottom tabs into 1 line
Preference to see images and be able to choose fast
What would be the best path?
User Flows
Having decided on the design layout, we started to visualize the user flows. For this sprint, we chose to focus on 3 user flows: requesting amenities, selecting and watching movies, and ordering drinks.
Amenities User Flow
Selecting Movies
Ordering Drinks
Wireframes
I designed initial conceptual wireframes and visuals of the major sections. I regrouped the original bottom tab bar items into PRE-FLIGHT and moved it along with IN-FLIGHT to the header for an improved navigation experience.
Style Guide
Since we were embedding features to the existing app, we followed Delta’s style guide and picked some primary colors and typeface as our main color and typeface to ensure the professional and credible branding of Delta.
Hi-Fi design & Usability Testing
We quickly did hi-fi design and then asked 5 people for usability testings. We tracked their feedback and consolidated it into iterations.
Final Design
Final Design
Log In & Category
Users can choose two ways to log in to check in-flight services: preview or check in. Once they enter, they will see that there are four types of in-flight service: entertainment, food & drinks, amenities and shopping.
Requesting Amenities
Users can tap pictures to choose which amenities to request during the flight. They can choose quantity and select a specific seat number. By default, the seat number is their own seat, but they can change in case they want to deliver to other flight passengers.
Selecting Movies
Under entertainment category, users can select movies, music, e-reading and games. If they select movies, they can filter by genre and see more details about the movie. They can also choose to watch on the built-in screen or on their own device. They can always switch between console and their device during the movie.
Ordering Drinks
If it’s an international flight, the snack menu will be food/meal menu. The snack-only menu is for domestic flights. Under the drinks menu, passengers can select free, alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks. Once they select one, they can choose how they want it to be delivered, quantity and seat number, and pay through the app.
In Flight (VR) Virtual Reality
Taking In Flight Service To Another Dimension
Wireframes
Mockups
Prototypes
Conclusion
As the lead designer of this team, I learned how to assign tasks, how to manage time and always remembering to lead by example to make the best out of our team collaboration. We managed to synthesize a good amount of data and designed 3 different flows in a style consistent with the original application for smart devices and and Virtual Reality.
To make this product complete, we would need to design a convenient and efficient payment system and do more usability testing. As a moderate flyer myself, I know how much this In-Flight service app would greatly improve flyers experiences.
Conclusion
As the lead designer of this team, I learned how to assign tasks, how to manage time and always remembering to lead by example to make the best out of our team collaboration. We managed to synthesize a good amount of data and designed 3 different flows in a style consistent with the original application for smart devices and and Virtual Reality.
To make this product complete, we would need to design a convenient and efficient payment system and do more usability testing. As a moderate flyer myself, I know how much this In-Flight service app would greatly improve flyers experiences.
