Enhancing the DFW Airport Experience
As part of my UX Design course at General Assembly, a 12 week UX Design Bootcamp, my team and I created a fictional UX Design consulting company called Fly Design. We were challenged with the task of improving the airport experience for passengers at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport by offering digital solutions specifically on DFW's mobile website that would facilitate the physical processes that occur at the airport.
We considered many factors, including long lines, crowded restaurants & retail spaces, gate changes, general navigational challenges, and a 2-week deadline.
Discovery Methods
We began with interviewing people who have traveled recently and who have been to DFW using a guide I created. We also explored common travel needs and habits through a questionnaire that I co-designed, a comparable and competitive experiences, an affinity map I co-created, and pulled reviews of the existing DFW airport from Google to identify existing pain points and themes to address that I lead.
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User Review Analysis
23 user reviews from DFW Airport's Google Maps page were analyzed for key themes and pain points.
User Interviews
5 users who have flown out of a U.S. airport in 2023 were asked about their travel behaviors and experiences.
Screened Questionnaire
34 Users who have recently traveled were surveyed on their travel habits and airport needs.
Defining The User
After collecting and synthesizing our data we organized the results through a Persona, Problem Statement and 'How Might We' statements that I co-created.
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This information was used to influence what approach we took, what designs we implemented and set our overall goals.
Persona
Bio
Taylor travels pretty regularly for work and pleasure - usually either on his own or with his partner. As a millennial, he often relies on digital channels to book his travel and looks to his phone when getting through his day-to-day tasks. He usually arrives to the airport with plenty of time to grab a quick bite and get settled for his flight.
Needs
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Needs to receive all his flight/gate updates ASAP.
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Utilizes technology in order to access information digitally.
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Wants to better understand the restaurants and stores available near his gate.
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Expects intuitive and straightforward navigation - this airport is huge.
Frustrations
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Unclear navigation & signage.
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Long lines & crowded areas.
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Boredom & having nothing to do.
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Problem Statement
The Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is a large international airport hub with 900+ daily flights that serve 224 destinations in 30 countries. It is the primary international airport servicing the North Texas Region.
With five terminals and over 160 gates, DFW can oftentimes be confusing and inefficient for travelers to navigate quickly. Furthermore, relevant flight and terminal specific information can be difficult to find - thus creating stress and uncertainty for travelers seeking their departure gate or various pre-flight services.
Passengers flying out of DFW Airport need an intuitive and streamlined way to navigate the airport and find the relevant information they need, when they need it.
How Might We...
Encourage visitors to interact with airport services?
Clarify the process for first-time DFW visitors?
Display airport navigation in a way users are receptive to?
Relay information to the users in quick and easy manner?
Assist users in pre-planning their visit?
Keep guests updated with the latest, most accurate information electronically?
Streamline the existing security screening?
Deliver flight updates without stressing the visitor?
Deliver information to users quickly and accurately to avoid a stressful experience?
Direct user to intuitively navigate the airport, stay updated with the latest flight info to reduce the amount of time searching?
Sketching
Everyone in our group ideated and sketched solutions using the information we collected and came together to add what we agreed worked best. My sketch gave the basic structure we used in our re-design. We decided to put the homepage button and global navigation in our top line to make global navigation easy to use and understand. We also decided to put the interactive map on the home page to ensure the users don't miss out on using this resource.
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Some ideas we didn't keep, like keeping a users flight info updated at the top right of the screen or having any boxes to fill as a search navigation option for the website.
Wireframing
Half our group contributed to the design and building the wireframes while the two other members lead this task.
User Flows & Usability Testing
Navigation
In our initial wireframes, we originally had an interactive map of DFW taking up a huge chunk of our homepage.
In analyzing our usability tests we discovered the map distracted our users. Instead of following the flow we were directing them to access the information they need, they always defaulted to clicking the biggest image (the map).
We also renamed the "Getting to DFW" button to reflect a more accurate message, "Drop Off Zone", which lets the typical user know where to go.
Shopping & Dining
In our usability testing, we found that most users could intuitively navigate our restaurants page using the information provided.
However, we didn’t initially have menu links or mobile ordering available and most of our testers called that out. So we added it in our final prototype.
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One feature we created was a way to filter details which helps the user narrow their results to what they want.
You can click to get more details and will find the restaurant’s information, as well as a link to their menu and mobile ordering capabilities.
Second, using the hamburger menu we can find a way to stay entertained! We can navigate to the airport resources section to find this and other services and resources available at DFW.
Flight Info
In order to find up-to-date gate information, the user would start at the home screen and click “Flight Info” to look up their flight. They can enter their information which is already pre-filled in our prototype and then click search to see their specific flight information.
Here, the user can see their updated gate information for their flight under “gate”.
Solutions
We developed solutions for these issues based on researching competitors, comparables as well as recent user reviews in addition to surveying some users of DFW and many of similar airports.
After gathering our data and implementing changes based on those responses we tested usability and features of our prototype to be able to make some upgrades and give recommendations for what should be done next.
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I am pleased with our results considering that within our 2-week timeframe we were able to identify user needs and design streamlined solutions and then test those solutions. Feel free to explore our working prototype on Figma below:
Next Recommendations
Enhance Accessibility
Our site meets AA accessibility standards, but can be improved in the future to meet AAA standards as well.
Beta Test MVP
After our prototype is re-tested, our MVP should be tested with actual users to evaluate real world function and efficacy.
Add Wait Time Feature
A highly requested feature was dining wait times - we need to define the technical constraints to build this out and test it.