My team and I conducted an end-to-end UX process to redesign the user experience of Turnaround Management by APiJET for Station Operation Managers (SOMs)--the people resonsible for making sure turnarounds runs smoothly--at airports to make informed decisions to reduce flight delays.
I present a tl;dr version of the entire process for this senior capstone project. Please refer to the process book below for a full discussion on design decisions and research methods.
Demo video of finished designs, illustrated by Leanne Liu and voice over by Jordan Kussman.
If you’ve used air travel before, you might have experienced your flight being delayed. Flight delays are definitely annoying for passengers, and also have a big impact on airline companies as well. In fact, flight delays cost approximately $76 per minute, and $28.9 billion dollars a year. [1, 2]--That’s a lot of money!
Infographic: flight delays can cause frustrated passengers and expensive fees for airline companies.
A turnaround is the 30-60 minute interval between an aircraft arriving at a gate to prepare for its next flight, which includes cleaning, catering, fueling, and more. A smooth turnaround saves airlines money in delay fees and reduces passenger frustration.
The aircraft turnaround is the process for airplanes to get ready for its next flight.
When I joined the project with my capstone team, our sponsor APiJET already had a beta version of Turnaround Management, a software which had the core functionality of visualizing aviation data and activity statuses to help Station Operations Managers (SOMs) better lead turnaround processes. This is currently being tested by Iceland Air.
Summary of Turnaround Management by APiJET. [3]
We designed three main features addressing pain points and supporting SOMs to manage aircrafts, preventing future flight delays.
We conducted seven semi-structured interviews to understand the turnaround process and how different teams collaborated.
Station Operation Manager x1
Pilots x2
Inflight leaders x2
APiJET chief officers x2
I directed my team to create a communication map based on the interviews to find who had the largest impact on the turnaround process running smoothly,
Aircraft Turnaround Communication Map, showing lines of communication between groups working on the aircraft.
“...[I’m] the heartbeat of the airport: things come in, they get deciphered, they get understood, and then they get distributed.”
We confirmed our main persona, the Station Operations Manager, had the largest network and responsibility to address controllable delays.
When SOMs develop situational awareness, they can be looking at 8 monitors to keep up with 30 aircraft turnarounds at one time, while listening to the radio, and handling calls. That can cause information overload! A Multi Flight View focusing on skimmable, organized statuses and progress information was a great way to efficiently consume relevant information.
The Multi Flight View provides flight information organized by time and gate.
We considered divergent design directions, such as map and table formats. We eventually converged into a Gantt chart design. This works best to organize information by time, a critical factor in prioritization of attention.
A major pain point for SOMs was not being able to prevent delays. That meant reacting to issues as they arise, putting flights at risk of delay. We propose a Delay Feed that shows two types of delays to stay updated with potential or current issues that can delay a flight.
Delay Feed. An overlay tab that is visible on Multi Flight and Single Flight views. The delay feed allows an SOM to see all of the critical and preventative delay issues that need action, allowing them to resolve delays quickly.
Icons serve a critical role in conveying information to the user. I pushed for the icons used in our design to have at least two differentiating visual treatments to accommodate for visual impairments, as recommended by the WCAG 2.0.
However, I had one icon left to complete the accessibility treatment. If I had additional time during this project, I will definitely give the Preventative delay icon a unique shape.
Icon list. Each given at least two different visual treatments with the exception of one delay icon.
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When SOMs resolve issues, the most important thing to know is who and what the resources are. Phone calls and emails are a common way to locate the resources. Single Flight View focusing on transparency of activity completion statuses and progress was a great way to effectively understand where issues originate and figure out how to resolve problems.
The Single Flight View provides flight information for one flight, and shows respective turnaround activity situation.
We looked to the feedback we received from usability testing and sponsor input to continuously iterate on our designs.
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The highlight for this view is the turnaround activity timeline, which makes it easier for SOMs to track activities. SOMs resolve issues often in a time crunch, so different data values including boolean or progress values are visually different for quick skimming. Unavailable values are grayed out to prevent misinforming the user, improving information confidence.
Turnaround activity timeline. Displays progress to identify where issues occur.
Instead of assuming that SOMs had vision requirements, I advocated for accessible design for vision impairments. To address green and red color blindness, I added two form based visual indicators to separate the colors in this bar.
Though my teammates were skeptical at first, I still pushed for accessible design practices. Good design practices will help SOMs understand the timeline better with additional indicators regardless of possible vision requirements.
Close up of additional form-based visual indicators to address green and red color blindness.
When SOMs review past turnaround data with their managers and teams, they often use raw data formats in a spreadsheet. Without involved visuals, SOMs experienced inconvenience interpreting past data. We proposed a reports feature dedicated for the visualizing and comparing relevant high-level delay information and performance data for SOMs to improve their turnaround process.
Reports provide turnaround data to compare and analyze for future improvements.
Date picker UI. This filter is the most important as it includes the comparison feature option.
We proceeded with a filter design to preserve the freedom to compare data types relevant to unique use cases. Based on that constant, we drafted various data visualizations, eventually settling on a monochromatic color scheme for easy comparison.
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We presented our designs to our sponsors, the SOM we interviewed, and HCDE Capstone showcase. Along with our final product, we also provided suggestions on the design for future work to APiJET. Our designs were very well received, and they are looking into implementing our designs. APiJET was especially excited about the turnaround timeline in the Single Flight View, my efforts for accessible design in it, and the comparison feature in the Reports view.
This project was an incredible learning experience for me because it was my first end-to-end project in industry. I learned that design in industry is part of business, it is critical to balance business needs and communicate reasons in such terms as well as user-centered terms.
Another learning moment was confirming the importance of accessibility practices I learned to this project. The sponsor was looking for accessible designs as well, which made me even more confident in my efforts. If this was a real project, I would take more time to recruit user testing participants with SOMs and address the last icon accessibility.
Finally, a big shoutout to my wonderful capstone team mates! A large part of the project took place during requirements to social distance and quarantine. We experienced challenges that came with this circumstance and design process obstacles, but we managed to overcome them through clear communication and focusing on the well-being of the team. We all brought forth unique insights and skills to make this challenge eventually into a success. Wishing my team mates the best in their journeys ahead!
Capstone team mates. Leanne Liu (top left), Cara Pangelinan (top right), Jordan Kussman (bottom left), and Esther Lin (bottom right).
[1] Schonland, Addison. US Airlines "Lost" Nearly $2Bn between January and April from Flight Delays " AirInsight. (2019).
[2] Ball, Michael, et al. "Total delay impact study: a comprehensive assessment of the costs and impacts of flight delay in the United States." (2010).
[3] Turnaround Management, https://apijet.com/turnaround-management/
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