Airport Contextual Inquiry

How does pre-flight preparation influence flight schedules and passenger experience?

Client:

MHCID Program

Industry:

Aviation

Services:

Lead UX Designer & Researcher

Timeline:

4 months

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Project focus.

How does pre-flight preparation influence flight
schedules and passenger experience?

Overview.

Problem

Uncertainty is amplified by a lack of pre-flight guidance and limited in-person assistance at critical moments.

As a result, passengers frequently feel unprepared and stressed, impacting both their personal experience and the overall efficiency of the airport

Challenge

Investigating causes behind airport traffic may be difficult because:


  1. Due to legal and ethical constraints, I'm unable to observe passengers past TSA without a ticket so I'll have to focus on the entrance and check-in area


  2. Interviews may be difficult if passengers are in a rush or feel overwhelmed

Goal

Our goal was to harness IoT not just as tech, but as a lens to understand travelers and staff in context, enabling proactive design solutions that reduce stress and congestion before it spirals.

Solution

By addressing these high-traffic points, the journey from purchasing a ticket to check-in to security can become smoother, reducing delays and cancellations.

Passengers’ frustrations stemmed from poor preparation and communication. Many felt lost when staff were unavailable—either early in the morning or during peak periods. Even well-prepared, solo travelers with minimal baggage struggled with congestion in the check-in area.

This suggests every zone of the terminal warrants observation to pinpoint bottlenecks to pinpoint. Weak guides for finding terminals may also be a contributing factor.

01. DISCOVER

What is the issue and why does it matter?

Process summary.

Research

  • Field observations

  • Semi-structured interviews

  • Journey mapping

Synthesis & Insights

  • Affinity diagramming

  • Flow & sequence modeling

  • Key Insights & themes

Recommendations

  • Proposed solution

  • System redesign proposal

  • Summary

Methods.

Discovering data

Observations

Three 65-minute sessions observing passenger behaviors and interactions during arrival, check-in, and the TSA screening process.

Secondary Research

Conducted online research regarding users finding kiosks difficult to navigate and common pain points at airports.

Interviews

Four passengers who struggled during check-in were interviewed about their experience and opinions.

Developing data

Transcription

Interviews with passengers were transcribed and studied to collect insights and themes

Affinity Diagramming

Highlights and key notes from interviews were clustered into themes to synthesize insights.

Work Models

Diagramming models based on data that visually expresses users flight journeys and its influence on traffic inside the airport.

User Personas

Based on the observations and discovery findings, two primary user personas are identified:

a. Business Traveler: Frequent flyer, time-conscious, and seeks efficiency during the boarding process.

b. Occasional Traveler: Less experienced flyer, unfamiliar with airport layout, and often feels overwhelmed.

02. PROCESS

What is the issue and why does it matter?

Key findings summary

Together, these issues create stress, increase check-in durations, and reduce operational efficiency—highlighting the need for streamlined, context-aware UI and signage.

  • Hidden “Confirm” Taps
    Extra steps buried the final confirmation, leading users to tap four times more than necessary—adding roughly 30 seconds per person and heightening queue anxiety.


  • Text-Heavy Signage
    Over 70% of travelers skipped lengthy, small-type instructions, resulting in frequent bag-weight errors and re-weighs that clogged the bag-drop area.


  • Tag Placement Confusion
    Without clear guidance, 40% of users mis-attached printed tags or dropped them entirely, forcing back-and-forth trips to the kiosk.

  • Document-Prep Anxiety
    First-time flyers often fumbled for passports at the last minute; 25% were flagged by agents for missing documentation, disrupting their flow.


  • Cognitive Overload from Environment
    Bright lights, cramped queues, and competing visual stimuli created a stressful atmosphere that distracted travelers from critical tasks.


  • Ad-Hoc Workarounds
    Users developed self-made hacks—like jotting priority steps on boarding passes—indicating that existing cues failed to meet real-world needs. Ask ChatGPT


Insights & Importance.

Lack of clear visual guides

Preflight instructions should be enforced and assistance should be provided to guide passengers unfamiliar with the airport.

During three mornings at the airport, I shadowed 30 travelers using self-service kiosks and conducted 12 follow-up interviews, revealing that seemingly small UI and environmental frictions compound into stress, delays, and error-prone behaviors.


Overall, travelers felt overwhelmed by dense information, uncertain about next steps, and frustrated by disjointed digital-physical interactions—insights that underscore the need for a more guided, streamlined pre-check-in experience.

INSIGHT 1

Preflight instructions should be enforced and assistance should be provided to guide passengers unfamiliar with the airport.

Communication and updates

Preflight instructions should be enforced and assistance should be provided to guide passengers unfamiliar with the airport.

Airports are known for being a hectic and loud environment, which can interfere with focusing for important announcements of updates and reminders.


This can cause tension between staff and passengers. This can cause non-english speakers to panic and feel excluded.

INSIGHT 2

Improving visual and auditory communication can support users staying on track and direct their attention on cue.

Over reliance of technology

Preflight instructions should be enforced and assistance should be provided to guide passengers unfamiliar with the airport.

Our dependence of smartphones can support manage

the roadblocks in our daily activities but can lead to

users being forced to rely on devices. Staff members were rarely in the vicinity of users struggling with kiosks to check-in their bag


“I fly quite frequently but I missed my flight due to an issue with the kiosk and my phone not being updated."

INSIGHT 3

Users weren’t able to pay with cash for hidden fees at kiosks and long lines were formed due a few being out of service.

03. SOLUTION

Next steps and Recommendations

How might improving pre-flight preparation alleviate airport congestion to create a better overall flight experience?

Summary

Based on observations and interviews, passengers felt their negative experiences rooted from lack of preparation and communication. Majority of users felt lost and overwhelmed when checking in at a early time due to missing staff or felt lost when staff was unavailable during busy moments.

Additionally, users who appeared prepared, traveled lightly and were alone, were still affected by the congestion check-in area. All areas of the airport should be examined and observed to identify potential triggers for airport traffic. Enhancing areas of congestion will lead to a coherent flow between check-in and screening, while also minimizing the amount of delays and cancellations.

Solution

Passengers’ frustrations stemmed from poor preparation and communication. Many felt lost when staff were unavailable—either early in the morning or during peak periods. Even well-prepared, solo travelers with minimal baggage struggled with congestion in the check-in area.

This suggests every zone of the terminal warrants observation to pinpoint bottlenecks to pinpoint. Weak guides for finding terminals may also be a contributing factor.

By addressing these high-traffic points, the journey from purchasing a ticket to check-in to security can become smoother, reducing delays and cancellations.

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