Kiran Arshi, Product Designer

Introduction

Industry: Aerospace

Role: UX/UI Designer

Challenge: Create the first aviation marketplace that lists helicopter tours and training offered by various US aviation companies.

Target Users: Aviation companies, pilots, instructors, students, tourists, adults in the US
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Process: Requirements, Research, Design, Develop

Understanding the Problems

Methods:

1) Design Brief: We kicked-off the project with a design brief meeting, where we learned about our clients' target users, brand, and goals.

2) Competitive Analysis: With the help of our clients, we analyzed existing competition to identify pain points and understand current browsing and booking experiences.
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Key Findings:

1) Emphasis on price: Common places to purchase helicopter tours were on websites like Groupon, which heavily marketed deals and lower prices.

2) Lack of a centralized platform: There wasn't a centralized platform for aviation companies to promote their services, or for users to browse them in one place.
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3) Training for beginners: Students interested in helicopter training didn't have an intuitive way to learn and compare their options.

Ideating Solutions

Goals:

1) Create the "Airbnb" of helicopter tours and training, which brings aviation services together on a common platform.

2) Give aviation companies the ability to market and manage their own listings.

3) Provide outlets for students to learn about their training options.

Designing the Final Solution

Winning Ideas:
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1) Prominent search feature to help users find what they're looking for.
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2) Instant messaging to enable easy communication between users and aviation companies.

3) A CMS dashboard to allow aviation companies and users to manage their activity.

4) A modern, clean UI to brand Aeromates as a professional platform with quality aviation partners.

Client Feedback

Think-Aloud: Our design presentation with our clients was in the form of a think-aloud. This allowed us to "test" our solution with experts who understood their users best.

Key Findings:

1) Missing use-case: We overlooked the use-case of instructors, who should be able to schedule training with students through the website.

2) Discovery: We learned that a homepage with only a search may not be intuitive for users who come onto Aeromates for the first time.

3) Lack of voice: Our clients didn't want Aeromates to simply serve as a middleman. They wanted the brand to have more voice.

Design Iteration

Changes We Made:

1) New instructor portal: We designed a separate portal for instructors to manage their availability and bookings. This connected to companies' CMS dashboard, where they could now create instructor profiles.

2) Homepage redesign: We extended the homepage to feature relevant tours and provide more information about Aeromates.
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3) Aeromates blog: We designed a blog to give Aeromates the ability to share resources and build a community without disrupting browsing and purchasing experiences.

Results

What We Built:

1) A transparent onboarding experience.

2) A simple search, browse, and purchase experience.

3) A complete CMS dashboard for companies and users to manage their activity.

4) An instructor portal to schedule training sessions.

5) Instant messaging for direct communication between users and aviation companies.

6) An integrated blog for clients to develop resources and a community.

Conclusion

Challenges:

1) Lack of research: Although we collected as much internal feedback as we could, we didn't have resources dedicated to usability, which prevented us from thoroughly validating our designs.
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2) Nailing down the scope: New requirements came up throughout the design process, which often required us to re-think our original concepts.


Key Takeaways:

1) The importance of a process: Having a structured UX process as opposed to an organic process is key to challenging assumptions and practicing true user-centered design.

2) Cross-team collaboration: Sharing the UX spirit with product managers and developers is an awesome way to generate new ideas and help others understand the intentions behind design.