Global Go
Global Go is an air travel application meticulously engineered to transform the conventional airport experience by seamlessly digitizing a multitude of airport processes and associated documentation. This groundbreaking solution is conceived with the objective of elevating operational efficiency and enhancing overall convenience for the traveler.
My Role
In my role as the co-lead UX/UI designer, I have assumed a pivotal responsibility for championing the inception, vision, research, and design endeavors of this transformative project. This role has entailed a close and symbiotic collaboration with my esteemed counterpart, Kelvin, who also serves as a co-lead on this venture. Together, we have navigated the complexities of this ambitious undertaking, leveraging our collective expertise to steer the project.
Problem
In modern air travel, the journey often commences with the challenge of navigating lengthy queues during the airport check-in process. Amidst the hustle and bustle of terminals, traveler are confronted with the task of obtaining boarding passes and handling luggage, a process notorious for its time-consuming nature. While self-service options have emerged as a potential remedy, they, too, come with their complexities. Even at self-service kiosks, passengers find themselves grappling with passport scans, boarding pass printouts, and various other intricacies. Striking a balance between efficiency and user-friendliness remains a persistent challenge in this landscape.
Time consumption
The convenience of online check-in, a significant advancement in modern air travel, unfortunately often falls short of delivering a seamless experience. While it enables passengers to complete essential pre-flight tasks in the comfort of their homes or on their mobile devices, the enduring challenge lies in the subsequent stages of the airport journey. Travelers frequently encounter substantial queues and wait times when they arrive at the airport for luggage check-in, security screening, and the boarding process.
Too many apps
The rise of airline-specific apps, tailored for the tech-savvy traveler, has undeniably transformed the way we engage with air travel. However, this increase of apps has brought forth a pressing concern: the management of multiple accounts and apps. Navigating the diverse array of airline apps often necessitates travellers to juggle an assortment of usernames, passwords, and interfaces, leading to a fragmented digital experience. The sheer volume of apps further worsens this challenge, demanding considerable effort and time from traveler.
Live status updates
Efficient communication regarding flight delays remains a persisting issue within the realm of air travel. Many travellers are left in the dark about potential disruptions until they physically reach the airport, leading to inconvenience and uncertainty. While some passengers opt to subscribe to specific airline text notifications for updates, this solution remains limited to a single source of information, potentially overlooking pertinent details.
Goal
Our primary objective is to enhance the traveler experience by significantly reducing wait times associated with critical stages such as check-in, security screening, and boarding processes. By streamlining these procedures, we aim to alleviate the stress and frustration often experienced by passengers. Through the implementation of innovative solutions, we aspire to create a seamless and efficient airport journey. One noteworthy innovation we envision is a unified application, consolidating the functionalities of multiple airline-specific apps into one comprehensive platform. This approach stores and shares traveler information across all airlines, thereby eliminating the need for multiple different apps, offering a more convenient and integrated travel experience.
Furthermore, as part of our vision for an enhanced traveler experience, we propose the implementation of a one-time background check well in advance of the flight. This process, coupled with the use of a personally generated QR code, enables travelers to seamlessly provide all their necessary information at the check-in desk, during security screening, and in the boarding area. This comprehensive approach aligns with our commitment to expediting the airport journey and simplifying the traveler's interactions with the airport infrastructure.
Research
The findings presented here stem from a research survey conducted among participants, shedding light on the prevalent check-in methods among travelers. Notably, the survey revealed a strong inclination among tech-savvy individuals towards online check-in, a preference attributed to its inherent convenience and accessibility.
Security screening at airports typically constitutes one of the more time-consuming processes, characterized by extended queues, inquiries, and thorough screening protocols. The results obtained from our research align with our initial hypothesis, affirming the significance of addressing this aspect of the traveler experience for improved efficiency and convenience.
As anticipated, our findings regarding the boarding process reaffirm the common challenges associated with prolonged queues and the overall inefficiency often encountered when boarding aircraft. These results underscore the pressing need to explore strategies for streamlining this aspect of air travel, ultimately enhancing the traveler's experience.
In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the traveler's journey at the airport, we have created a visual flow chart. This chart serves as a valuable tool for explaining the details of the existing process, enabling us to pinpoint areas for enhancement and optimization.
This is an updated visual flow chart depicting the potential transformation of the traveler's experience with the implementation of Global Go into the existing system. Our aim is to significantly reduce arrival times, from the conventional 2-3 hours to a mere 30-60 minutes, thereby enhancing efficiency and expediency in the airport journey. This can be accomplished if all the background checks are done in advance.
Personas
The provided low-fidelity wireframes serve as a visual representation of our envisioned approach for showcasing personas. The left image draws inspiration from a pamphlet format, while the right image is for summarizing key details about each individual persona.
The high-fidelity mockups of our personas were strategically chosen to enable us to emphasize key details, manage text content effectively, and present visually appealing depictions of each individual.
Early Ideation
These are my sketches that I created for the smartphone and smartwatch app. I was focusing on having a the smartphone app as the main feature and the smart watch app supporting it by displaying necessary information only.
The montage of low-fidelity mockups showcases our collaborative effort in designing the smartphone app, incorporating elements from both Kelvin's and my sketches. The inclusion of multiple styles for each page offered a diversified visual perspective, facilitating an exploratory phase to better identify the most effective design direction before refining our concepts.
The compilation of low-fidelity smartwatch designs was intentionally crafted to prioritize simplicity and feature large buttons for enhanced usability. These designs were conceived to seamlessly complement and support the smartphone app, ensuring a cohesive and integrated user experience, rather than functioning as an independent entity.
These four images represent the various pages of the medium-fidelity design, with a deliberate arrangement of features. The prominence of the QR code on the initial page is strategically aimed at prioritizing its utility, recognizing it as a frequently used feature. The travelers' page was structured to efficiently present essential information alongside individual images, ensuring an informative and visually engaging user interface, while the standard settings and notification page adheres to conventional design standards for seamless user navigation.
This collection of medium-fidelity design images illustrates the process of retrieving flight details using a flight number, which encompasses real-time flight status updates, providing users with a comprehensive overview of the current location and progress of their flights.
The image on the left showcases the traveler page, providing an overview of the individuals within the app. Meanwhile, the middle and right images delineate the step-by-step process for adding a traveler, highlighting the requisite information to be input for traveler inclusion.
These two images offer a preview of the edit traveler page, both in its visual design and its potential functionality when traveler details are populated. They provide insight into the user experience when making edits to traveler profiles within the app.
These images represent the medium-fidelity designs of the smartwatch interface, emphasizing a minimalist and user-friendly approach. The focus is directed towards the four key pages, ensuring an intuitive and straightforward design for effective interaction.
Skills & Tools
Skills
Research
Sketching
Personas
Brainstorming
Wireframing
Flow Charts
Prototyping
Graphic Design
App Design
Tools
Illustrator
Photoshop
Figma
Google Sheets
Google Docs
Process
Motivated by a personal aversion to the time-consuming intricacies of airport processes, I embarked on a mission to pioneer an innovative app that would alleviate these pain points. I collaborated with Kelvin, and together, we started on a lengthy research phase. We conducted a survey over a two-week period to understand the challenges people face during air travel. The results validated our initial claims, providing a solid foundation for the project.
To gain a better understanding of the airport traveler's journey, we created flow charts, visually mapping out the existing process and envisioning the transformative impact of our app. Developing four distinct personas enabled us to showcase our app's adaptability, leading to the creation of low to high fidelity mockups.
In the design phase, Kelvin and I synergized our efforts, combining low-fidelity mockups on Figma for both smartphone and smartwatch interfaces. We meticulously curated the best components, laying the foundation for our style guide. As I focused on crafting intuitive icons, Kelvin honed the app's visual identity. Careful selection of fonts and colors culminated in a cohesive design language.
Upon completion of the high-fidelity mockups, our collaboration extended to the prototyping phase, where both smartphone and smartwatch apps were meticulously refined. Satisfied with our outcomes, we culminated our efforts in the creation of a comprehensive poster, strategically tailored to bolster our app's design narrative.
Final Designs
The provided high-fidelity prototype gif offers a dynamic walkthrough of key interface components, sequentially highlighting the home, traveler, flight, settings, and notification pages. This visualization succinctly demonstrates the functional and design aspects of the user interface.
This animated gif effectively showcases the functionality of the "Begin your trip" feature, illustrating how users input their flight details and subsequently access the status page. It provides a concise overview of this key interaction within the app.
The included gif offers a comprehensive overview of the design and functionality of the "Edit Traveler" page, demonstrating the user interface and interaction elements. It serves as a succinct representation of this specific feature within the app.
These high-fidelity mockup pages capture the essence of the main interface components, namely the home, traveler, and flight details pages, representing the core elements of the application. Our primary focus was to maintain a clean and user-friendly design. The home page prominently features the QR code, a pivotal tool for travelers at every stage of their journey. The traveler page facilitates user-friendly traveler management, including addition, editing, and deletion, while the flight details page offers comprehensive flight information and status updates.
The presented gif provides a concise demonstration of the smartwatch interface, underscoring our commitment to a minimalist and user-friendly design approach. Its purpose is to highlight the simplicity and ease of use inherent in the smartwatch pages.
These high-fidelity images showcase all the pages of the smartwatch interface, with a central emphasis on the QR code page. These pages were thoughtfully designed to complement and support the smartphone app, facilitating a cohesive user experience on both devices.
The poster was crafted to reinforce the core attributes of our app - easy, fast, and secure, aligning with our value proposition. It was designed on Figma by both Kelvin and me, serving as a visual asset to promote and convey the essence of the application. Link to poster.
Reflection
This project presented a formidable challenge as it required translating a vision into a concrete design solution while navigating various uncertainties along the way. The initial hurdle was engaging survey participants due to a low response rate, necessitating a concerted effort to mobilize our social networks for participation. Additionally, the extensive research required to substantiate our design decisions proved time-consuming but was indispensable in steering our design direction.
A pivotal turning point in the project came when I visited the airport in person, allowing for firsthand observations and note-taking, which enriched our understanding and informed subsequent design choices. Another significant challenge was introducing Kelvin to the Figma design platform, which required concurrent learning while designing.
Throughout this project, I had the opportunity to bring my vision to fruition and further hone my skills in Figma, encompassing wireframing, prototyping, persona creation, and other essential design competencies. It was a rewarding experience that not only extended my design skill set but also empowered me to overcome challenges and collaborate effectively to achieve a shared goal.