Overview
Main purpose of this app is to help passengers move through an airport with more confidence and less crowd exposure, while giving gate agents enough operational context to identify exceptions and communicate at the right moment.
Problem
Airport journeys contain uncertainty around gates, queues, boarding, walking time and crowding. Passengers need clearer situational guidance, while staff need visibility of who may need help.
Design response
A connected passenger and gate-agent ecosystem built around shared flight, boarding, location and messaging data.
Design scope
Research synthesis, affinity mapping, personas, stories, feature definition, IA, workflows, wireframes and high-fidelity mobile UI.
Process
The process intentionally moves from broad uncertainty to focused product decisions. Each step shows where the work opened up to explore the problem and where it narrowed into a testable direction.
Discover
Understand behaviours, anxiety, movement and staff needs.
Define
Cluster evidence, create personas and convert themes into user stories.
Develop
Shape the product ecosystem, IA, role workflows and wireframes.
Deliver
Refine major flows into high-fidelity passenger and gate-agent experiences.
1. Discover
Researching the airport journey
The research phase focuses on where social distancing becomes difficult in practice: unpredictable queues, rushed boarding, unclear walking time, crowded routes and the communication gap between staff and passengers.
6 interview participants
A small qualitative sample representing different traveller needs, confidence levels and assistance situations.
69 evidence notes
Cluster sizes vary from 9 to 14 notes, reflecting which issues appeared more strongly across the six participants.
Six themes emerged from the evidence
The clustering moved the project away from a generic “social distancing app” and towards a more useful operational idea: reduce uncertainty, guide movement and create a shared view between passengers and airport staff.
Airport uncertainty
11 notes • Gate changes, queue times, walking time and feeling rushed.
Crowd exposure
10 notes • Avoiding busy areas, queue build-up and finding quieter waiting points.
Boarding awareness
13 notes • Boarding category, time-to-gate, security time and journey status.
Navigation & places
12 notes • Maps, POIs, saved places, distance and walking-time decisions.
Assistance & contact
14 notes • Children, assistance needs, exceptions and direct communication.
Trust & privacy
9 notes • Purposeful, time-bound location sharing with clear passenger benefit.
Affinity outputs > design principles
The working synthesis translated recurring evidence into six product principles
01
Reduce journey uncertanity
Show flight, gate, boarding, security and walking-time context together so passengers can make calm decisions.
02
Make distancing actionable
Use live location and map context to help passengers avoid crowding and waitr in better places.
03
Connect staff and passenger views
Gate agents need a passenger list, filters, maps and messaging so they can act on the same journey data.
04
Prioritise exceptions
Children, assistance needs, connection times and late-to-gate passengers require special visibility
05
Support movement decisions
Places, saved locations and travek-time estimates should answer "Can I go there and still make my flight?"
06
Build trust into tracking
Location use must be purposeful, time-bound and connected to clear passenger benefit.
2. Define
From insight to stories and features
Affinity outputs were converted into user stories, then deliberately shaped so the resulting feature list reaches the capabilities already visible in the final UI. This makes the case study traceable from evidence to interface.
Passenger story
As a passenger, I want one journey view with gate, boarding and walking-time context so I can make calmer decisions about where to wait and when to move.
Gate-agent story
As a gate agent, I want to identify passengers who may need attention and contact them quickly so boarding can stay safe and on time.
Shared-system story
As staff and passengers, we need the same journey state so flight, boarding, location and communication updates remain consistent across both experiences.
| Feature list | ||
|---|---|---|
| account access | add flight | my flights |
| flight detail | boarding status | time to gate |
| time to security | airport map | POIs |
| saved locations | walking-time comparison | watch summary |
| gate-agent flight list | passenger table | filters |
| assistance flags | passenger map | passenger detail |
| group/individual messaging | attachments |
Information Architecture
A connected product ecosystem
The IA was organised around role-specific tasks, but shared data keeps both sides connected. Passenger movement updates the context available to staff, while gate and boarding changes shape the guidance shown to passengers.
Passenger experience
Account → My flights → Flight detail → Boarding / timing → Places & maps → Saved locations → Watch companion
Shared journey data
Flight & gate → passenger & seat → location & walking time → boarding & connections → communication events
Gate-agent experience
Flight list → Passenger list → Filters → Passenger map → Passenger detail → Targeted messaging
User flows
Major journeys before visual design
The key flows were mapped around real decisions, not screen sequences. For passengers the core question is “where should I be and when should I move?” For gate agents it is “who needs attention and what action should I take?”
Passenger journey
Sign in → add flight → review journey status → decide to move or wait → use map / places → receive guidance → board.
Gate-agent exception flow
Select flight → review passenger list → filter exception → inspect map/detail → message individual or group → monitor boarding.
Connected loop
Passenger location and boarding state feed operational awareness; staff messages return targeted guidance into the passenger journey.
Task flows before visual design
The working-board passenger and gate-agent flows are mapped around decisions, exceptions and the shared journey state
3. Develop
Wireframing the operational model
The wireframes show the gate-agent side as a dense operational tool. This is where the product moves beyond a passenger-only concept and becomes a coordinated system.
Important details captured from the wireframes include a passenger table with seat, age, boarding category, distance to gate, time to gate, connection status and boarded state; filters such as “have children or need assistance”; passenger location tooltips; individual passenger detail; and targeted messaging with boarding-category selection and attachments.
Gate-agent wireframe journey
Choose a flight → scan the passenger list → inspect an individual exception → locate the passenger in the terminal.
4. Deliver
High-fidelity passenger experience
The final UI simplifies the passenger side into a calmer set of mobile moments. The interface keeps flight information, timing and location decisions close together without exposing the operational density used by gate agents.
The supplied high-fidelity screens include account access, flight setup using airport / flight / terminal / gate / seat details, a flight-detail dashboard with boarding and travel-time context, map-based saved locations, places with walking-time comparisons, and an Apple Watch companion view.
Design rationale
How the research appears in the UI
The interface choices are strongest when they can be traced back to a specific uncertainty or operational need.
Time to gate
Turns distance into an actionable decision for passengers and a risk signal for staff.
Boarding category
Supports both passenger guidance and group-level staff messaging.
Passenger map
Makes location useful for exception handling rather than tracking for its own sake.
Places comparison
Lets passengers wait or move without losing confidence about boarding time.
Assistance filters
Helps staff identify passengers who may move more slowly or need earlier support.
Shared messaging
Closes the loop between operational awareness and passenger action.
Outcome
A safer journey is also a clearer journey
The main design outcome is not simply “keep people apart”. It is a system that reduces uncertainty around movement and boarding. Passengers gain clearer timing and place decisions, while gate agents gain visibility of exceptions and a direct communication path.
What I would validate next
Whether walking-time guidance changes passenger movement behaviour
Whether passengers trust time-bound location sharing
Whether exception filters reduce gate-agent scanning time
Whether targeted messages reduce late or rushed boarding
Whether map / place guidance creates less crowd concentration around gates
