Envisioning a digital boarding process

A design sprint to imagine how to digitize the whole boarding operations for KLM / Aifrance operated flights.

Summary

Goal

Following the successful implementation of the digital scan of the boarding passes, KLM wanted to support the whole boarding operations via its app Appy2Help.

In september 2019, the product owner initiated a design sprint of 5 days to co-create the new boarding process with the key stakeholders.

My role

My role was to help out the facilitator with the organization and guiding the participants. I also contributed to the final design solution – as my idea and the one of the product owner were selected. Together with the other designer I created the prototype and tested it.

Outcome

We set the basis for this new complex functionality coming up with a design solution satifying all the stakeholders.

The design sprint week

Day #1: Map

During the first day the product owner clarified the goal of the project which was to create a feature for Appy2Help. In order to have a manageable scope, we mapped the different phases of the boarding operations and decided on which phase to focus, than proceeded to set the long-term goal.

We later listened and interviewed four experts: 2 researchers and 2 stakeholders presented the pain points and needs of their department, concerning the boarding process and two UX researchers shared with us their insights.

Organizing the insights

The participants wrote their How Might We notes on post-its and placed them on the wall. I clustered the post-its and labelled the themes on new ones. We dot voted the insights and discussed the outcome.

Day #2: Sketch

During the second day, some of us did a lightning demo on some interesting solutions made by other companies and I captured them on paper.

Sketches of the main insights

All the participants took notes, than sketched some ideas using the Crazy 8s and Solution sketch ideation methods, and came up with a proposal each.

Day #3: Decide

On the third day we put all the sketches on the wall as an Art museum, reviewed them in silence and created a heat map by dot voting the best ideas.

In a speed critique, we discussed the highlights of each solution and did a straw poll to choose our favorite idea, while the product owner also gave her supervote.

My sketch and the product owner's got most of the votes.

Day #4: Prototype

Together with the other designer we turned the best ideas into a storyboard and shared the work on the wireframes. We later combined them into a prototype, checked it with the product owner and got everything ready for the usability test.

Day #5: Test

After setting up the interview room, the camera and the screens, I did 5 usability tests together with the UX researcher, while the rest of the group was watching in another room.

Following the usability test

We all wrote down notes, that we mapped on the wall, resulting in a wealth of shared user insights. We looked for patterns and organized them. After a discussion on the main findings, we ended up with a list of concrete actions to work on.

The wall of insights

Learnings & next steps

The design sprint was a very insightful experience: having all the stakeholders together in one room, made us all understand with clarity other departments' goals and empathize with them.

Unfortunately, user insights weren't taken much into account during the sprint and the result of the test was far from satisfying.
My UX designer colleague left the company after the sprint, so I took the lead of the project and, starting from the outcome of the usability test, I embarked into a research phase.

Click here to read about the following phase of the project.