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Achieving a 46% reduction in boarding time through an innovative group-pass solution.
Sep - Dec 2024
UX/UI design
Prototype testing
Design Iteration
User research
Benedicta Gokah - Researcher
Max Kurchitskiy - Technical backup
Yuhan Ke - UX Designer
Figma
Miro
Figma Prototype
Final report
Group boarding, especially family (with active kids) boarding often turns into a stressful and chaotic experience for parents, as they juggle restless children’d needs, multiple bags, and procedural hurdles like TSA security.
Meanwhile, gate agents must manually verify and process multiple documents while managing a continuous flow of passengers. Errors frequently occur due to task-switching and divided attention.
We developed two key solutions:
Gate Agent Verification Scanner: A streamlined system for efficient identity and group verification during boarding.
Boarding Analytics Dashboard: Real-time passenger insights and complexity scoring to help gate agents make informed decisions and provide better service.
Easier Group verification and board
The gate agent scans the boarding pass of any group member. A pop-up displays the list of remaining group members, allowing the gate agent to quickly verify and select passengers to board together.
A more flexible and convenient way to support group boarding.
Boarding Complexity Overview
Enable gate agents to efficiently prepare for boarding by providing passenger analytics and actionable insights:
Competitor Analysis
Analogous Industry Research
Sentiment Analysis
User Observations(O’hare)
Contextual Inquiry
Intercepts
Cluster Analysis & Synthesis
First Principle Insights
Consequence Matrix
Problem Reframe
Role Playing Use Cases
Round Robin Idea Generator
Rapid Prototyping
Simulation & Usability Testing
Semi-structured Interviews
Design Iteration
Impact Matrix
Risk Analysis
As the only UX designer, I spearheaded multiple rounds of rapid prototyping, creating wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and interactive prototypes for user testing. I balanced user feedback, stakeholder requirements, technical constraints, and business needs to deliver optimized solutions.
I led all the contextual research activities with other researchers, developed simulation testing protocols, and created environmental setups, including visual materials, hardware prototypes, and clickable prototypes for thorough validation.
Additionally, I served as the student project manager, taking responsibility for facilitating smooth communication with United Airline’s design manager and project managers.
We first studied the airline industry, and using the framework of a service blueprint, identified hotspots and gaps in the problem space.
In an attempt to design for customers at scale, we needed to understand customer opinions, emotions and attitudes. We accomplished this by scrapping insights from online forums through quantitative research approaches.
Through analogous research, we discovered that group movement behaviors often mirror 'herding' patterns seen in various contexts, understanding these herding behaviors helped inform our design principles for group boarding, rather than against natural group dynamics.
Stepping outside of the airline industry and exploring the works of Disney, Ikea and several other companies was a useful exercise which helped to translate into design principles.
After observation, we mapped out the whole service system map, including passengers, gate agent behavioral and their interaction.
DEFINE
HMW statement
How might we improve the boarding process to
reduce stress for both gate agents and passengers?
Proposing solutions without clearly defining and aligning on the problem will lead to ineffective outcomes. Based on research insights, I define clear design requirements and establish shared understanding with the client.
With our research findings and design requirements in mind, I invited our researchers and engineers to brainstorm solutions together. I encouraged them to come up with as many ideas as possible without considering feasibility at this stage.
(Yes, and...) Each participant first drafted one idea, worksheets were passed around, allowing everyone to build upon and enhance others' concepts.
Through this iterative process, we narrowed down to 3 promising design concepts for further development.
Then I quickly drew out wireframes for crucial screens that represent the essence of our ideas. We then showed the following concepts and scenarios to our client and asked them about their feedback on our design concept.
Combining multiple boarding passes into one group pass.
A streamlined scanning interface showing remaining group members, allowing quick verification and selection for group boarding.
Analyze and visualize all the possible slowness in the boarding process to better allocate staff for handling them.
What are the potential trade-offs?
We decided to explore concept 2 further because the scanning mechanism provides an impactful first step that can be realistically achieved while setting the foundation for future improvements.
I created different variations to see how I can make it better and utilize the space.
Finally, I decided to go with option c, because considering the stressful and time-sensitive environment of the gate agent, using larger clickable areas to minimizes the risk of accidentally selecting the wrong option.
I created the following prototypes and brought an functional prototype for design validation.
To evaluate the effectiveness of the group boarding process and identify friction points in switching between individual and group boarding modes. We practically shape-shifted a class room to simulate an airport with foam-core and 3D printed gadgets.
Operational Impact
It is possible to reduce the boarding time of a group by 46% through implementation of the new scanning mechanism.
Behavioral Considerations
The more personalized boarding experience created pleasant surprises for passengers and helped them feel more relaxed.
Risk Analysis
No way to undo or correct mistakes in mobile scanner
The agent is required to manually select, minimizing the risk of oversight in pressure environments, ensuring they are aware of the individuals being boarded. but still faster than scanning one by one.also encourages agents to actively engage with the passengers in front of them, promotes better customer interaction, establishes eye contact.
During simulation, I felt overwhelmed when facing queues of passengers as a gate agent, so I decided to add passenger info and board status. While we initially used simple child/adult categories with age and gender data, after considering the complexity of age classification across different cultures and countries, where the definition of 'adult' varies, we decided to use specific age instead.
Easier Group verification and board
The gate agent scans the boarding pass of any group member. A pop-up displays the list of remaining group members, allowing the gate agent to quickly verify and select passengers to board together.
A more flexible and convenient way to support group boarding.
At the end of this project, we used a juicy story to present our design proposal, if you’re interested in, check our final design report
- Holistic design approach that considers various airport scenarios, passenger touchpoints, and device interactions throughout the boarding journey.
- Implementing a more aggressive feedback cycle by seeking stakeholder input earlier and more frequently, we could quickly identify and address
potential misunderstandings, ensuring our design decisions remain well-informed despite the compressed timeline.
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