WAYR

An AR navigation application that helps passengers with wayfinding at airports

SUMMARY

PROBLEM

How might we make it easier for passengers to navigate while journeying through airports?

USERS

Passengers journeying through airports with a smartphone.

SOLUTION

A mobile application that provides personalized navigation solution using AR Technology

MY ROLE

UI/UX Designer:

User Research, Ideation, IxD, Visual Design, Prototyping, and Testing

UX METHODS

Desk Research, Interviews, Competitive Analysis, Personas, Storyboarding, Information Architecture, Wireframing, Prototyping, and Usability Testing

TOOLS

Figma, Miro, Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator

TEAM

Collaborated with 3 other students in this academic project

DELIVERABLES

Persona, Wireframes, Prototype, and Usability Test Reports

DURATION

6 weeks

DESIGN PROCESS

DISCOVERY

DEFINE

IDEATE

DESIGN

USABILITY TESTING

DISCOVERY

While we, as a group of four, personally encountered trouble navigating airports, our objective was to assess the problem from a perspective that extended beyond our individual experiences.

SECONDARY RESEARCH

Read articles about wayfinding issues passengers face

PRIMARY RESEARCH

4 interviews with individuals experienced in international travel

WHAT WE DISCOVERED

Airports are filled with

19 million

passengers beyond capacity

Read article

Out of 10,408 passengers,

82%

were unhappy with airport signages

Read article

ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS ABOUT AIRPORT LOGISTICS AND COMMUNICATION

INSIGHT #1

Information overload: Passengers while looking for relevant information might get lost in the ocean information present and feel overwhelmed.

INSIGHT #2

No real-time updates: If information such as departure gate changes, getting updates can be difficult.

INSIGHT #4

Airport amenities: Finding services such as lounges can be tricky.

INSIGHT #5

Transiting: Moving from one terminal to the other can be burdensome.

INSIGHT #3

Security: No two airports have the same layout and security rules, especially at international terminals.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS ABOUT AIRPORT NAVIGATION AND ORIENTATION

INSIGHT #1

Confusing signages: Understanding signage could get difficult for reasons such as not knowing the language it is presented in.

INSIGHT #2

Multi-level airports: Wayfinding becomes more challenging if there are multiple floors at airports that passengers need to go around.

INSIGHT #3

Airport staff: Passengers find it difficult to approach the airport staff with their queries for reasons such as language barrier or unavailability.

CURRENT AIRPORT NAVIGATION OPTIONS AND THEIR ISSUES

STATIC SIGNAGE

Display crucial information like gate numbers and flights but can be confusing and sometimes require passengers to wait before the information about their flight pops up.

DIGITAL SIGNAGE

They are more convenient than traditional signages but have overwhelming information and are expensive.

MOBILE APPLICATION

Applications like Google Maps and Apple Maps have indoor navigation. This is more convenient than digital signage and provides a good solution to wayfinding but is not personalized for the traveler as they have to know where to go to enter the location on the application.

IDEATE

Based on the insights gathered from the previous phases, including the identified issues and existing solutions, the team engaged in a brainstorming session to generate various ideas aimed at addressing these problems. The team identified 3 principles that the solution must always follow:

SOLUTION FEATURES

ONBOARDING

Allow passengers to sign-up on the application.

MULTIPLE LANGUAGES

Allow customizing the navigation with the preferred language.

SCAN BOARDING PASS

Passengers should be able to scan their boarding pass and the application should generate a route for them to their boarding gate.

ADD CHECKPOINTS

Search and add amenities such as restaurants to a passenger's navigation path.

AR NAVIGATION

Navigate to the checkpoints using Augmented Reality.

TEXTUAL NAVIGATION CUES

To give more flexibility to the passengers, give textual navigation prompts.

VOICE-ASSISTED NAVIGATION

Allow passengers to navigate without having to look at their phones at all times.

REAL-TIME FLIGHT UPDATES

Updates such as boarding gate change or flight cancellation.

STORYBOARD

To understand how these features could be used by the users we defined earlier, we illustrated storyboards. These storyboards also helped us develop user flow to tell our story more effectively.

Image: Storyboard of the first user persona

Image: Storyboard of the second user persona

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

PRINCIPLE #1

Provide just the right amount of information needed to reach the destination.

PRINCIPLE #2

Wayfinding should be intuitive for non-technologically savvy people.

PRICNCIPLE #3

Personalized and inclusive of non-native language speakers.

A mobile application that utilizes AR technology to personalize wayfinding and guide passengers to their boarding gates.

MOBILE APPLICATION

It can provide convenient access to real-time information such as flight and airport information.

AUGMENTED REALITY

AR navigation enhances spatial awareness, facilitating intuitive and efficient navigation, and benefiting passengers in a rush at the airport.

THE SOLUTION

DEFINE

From the data, we gathered in the discovery phase, we decided to collate all of it systematically to generate patterns for defining the problem better.

WHAT WE DEFINED

ISSUES TO SOLVE

ISSUE #4

Not catered to one language: Passengers with certain language barriers might find it difficult to navigate at airports.

ISSUE #1

Information overload: Sometimes the information present at the airport could prove to be overwhelming especially if passengers are in a hurry.

ISSUE #2

Not personalized: Passengers can never have wayfinding catered to their own needs which could include stopping at multiple places.

ISSUE #3

Wayfinding is not intuitive: Airports could seem like a maze and navigating with arrows could prove to be ineffective.

USERS TO SOLVE FOR

The users we defined would like to seamlessly navigate through the airport and reach their destination without any hassle.

AFFINITY MAPPING

We put in all the data collected from desk research, interviews, and personal experiences, and categorized them. These categories helped us identify major issues faced by the passengers and also generalize the users for building the solution later.

Image: Affinity Map on Miro

USABILITY TESTING

We conducted an evaluation of the WAYR mobile application with 3 participants and expert evaluations with 3 UX Design industry professionals with predefined tasks using the think-aloud protocol.

Navigating to the boarding gate using the application

Adding an amenity to their journey

ISSUES DISCOVERED

ISSUE #1

The toggle button and label on the navigation overview are too small to be able to perform toggle action and understand the context of use.

ISSUE #2

Users were unaware of the destination getting added to the navigation checkpoints and expected a prompt or success message upon adding amenities to navigation milestones.

ISSUE #3

The message for scanning the boarding pass QR code lacked clarity. Users were not clear about what QR code to scan on the application.

ISSUE #4

Users did not understand checkpoint milestones, or black dots on the flat map while selecting amenities.

ISSUE #6

Users should be given a context at the beginning of the journey about navigation details and a digital boarding pass using a prompt.

ISSUE #5

After reaching the destination, users expect a success message on navigating to the destination.

CONCEPT VALIDATION

FEASIBILITY CONCERNS

ISSUE #1

Passengers traveling with bulky or multiple luggage might find it difficult to hold their phones in front of them for navigating to their destination.

ISSUE #2

Infrastructure issues, such as phones not supporting augmented reality-based applications will make it difficult for users to be able to navigate using our application.

ISSUE #3

Since our current design solution requires our users to be able to look at their phones for directions, visually impaired users’ wayfinding would be nearly impossible.

ISSUE #4

The application will not work if the users are unable to load their itinerary onto their phones. It requires a stable network connection and therefore issues related to it will make our application render useless.

From our user evaluations with participants and discussions with other stakeholders, we realized the participants had concerns about the feasibility of the application in the real-world scenario for its usage. The following were the concerns they had about the feasibility of the proposed solution:

IMPACT ON CURRENT PRACTICES

ISSUE #1

Since the application is using Augmented reality for navigation, there is a possibility of passengers standing in the middle of the concourse of the airport trying to find their way, looking at their phones which might create congestion or blockage of the path.

ISSUE #2

The mobile device while using this application will consume a lot of power and therefore might interfere with passengers’ other tasks on it.

The application works on augmented reality-based wayfinding which might impact the user’s practices and the way they interact with amenities at airports. The following are the impact of this tool on its user’s practices and their existing relationships with wayfinding at airports:

TASKS

TASK ERRORS

ISSUE #1

The application directly starts navigation after the scanning of the QR code and it might look abrupt to the user. The experts suggest that there should be a prompt before the user journey starts indicating the source, destination, and boarding details of the flight.

ISSUE #2

There is a lack of cognitive feedback interactions for the user. For example, there is no prompt for starting the journey, adding stops, and ending the journey.

ISSUE #3

The users do not know how much time will a stop add to their journey.

ISSUE #4

The top navigation overview section is not intuitive to the user since there is no call to action icon.

ISSUE #6

The continue button seems redundant when the users should be allowed to swipe through the splash screens. It should appear after the last splash screen has been viewed.

ISSUE #5

The AR to 2D toggle switch should be present on the main screen for ease of access to the user.

We conducted a usability evaluation of the WAYR mobile application with 3 participants with predefined tasks using the think-aloud protocol and discovered several issues with the prototype.

POST TASK QUESTIONNAIRE

ISSUE #1

What are your views on the overall usability of the application?

ISSUE #2

Does the application serve the purpose of guiding the user to the destination?

ISSUE #3

How is the overall look and feel of the application?

ISSUE #4

What parts of the application need to be optimized to increase the overall usability?

ISSUE #1

What do you think the best parts of the application are?

To get more insights on the overall design of the application experts were asked to fill a questionnaire after completing the tasks given to them in the evaluation. The questionnaire focused on the overall usability and the quality of the product and helped us gain deeper insights into our solution. Some of the questions in the questionnaire were:

Based on the tasks and questionnaire given to the experts, we received mixed feedback. Features like the black and white filter on the screen, the micro-interaction of the walking man, and the 2D map for referencing the different amenities around the user were appreciated by the experts. They suggested the application needed some improvements but liked the overall application. They felt that apart from some issues, the application served the purpose of leading the users to the destination well. They also felt that the look and feel of the application were clean and smooth which helped us realize that the design direction we took with this problem space has been well thought out and we are on the right track to solve it.

MY LEARNINGS

COLLABORATION

Collaborating with diverse individuals on a project yielded varied perspectives and resulted in an impactful final prototype. It underscored the importance of effective collaboration, which brings new viewpoints and enhances the product's overall quality.

AWARENESS

If a user is walking with their phone in front of them, their awareness could be impacted. We learned this through our initial testing and realized the need to refine our solution to focus on navigation without having to look at the screen all the time.

AMENITIES

Initial testing highlighted the application's necessity. Passengers may not require AR navigation for simple gate-to-gate travel, but it becomes valuable when searching for amenities in larger airports.

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