WAYR
Enhancing Airport Navigation for All Travelers
Project Overview
Project Title: WAYR
Role: UX Researcher, Designer, Manager, and Tester
Timeline: 3 months (Academic Project)
Team: A team of 4 HCI students
The Challenge
Navigating a busy airport is often a stressful experience, especially for novice ornon-native language-speaking passengers. The problem is a significant one, impacting 4.5 billion travelers annually and leading to increased cognitive load, missed flights, and a poor user experience. Our team set out to answer the question:
How might we help novice and non-native language-speaking air passengers make easier decisions while navigating through the airport?
My contribution and Impact
As a key member of a multi-disciplinary student team, I drove the project from initial discovery to final prototype. I led the research phase by conducting a literature survey of 10 papers, designing interview questionnaires, and performing online observations. My insights from an interview with a middle-aged, non-native speaker directly revealed critical pain points. I then translated these findings into a tangible solution by designing user flows and storyboards and developing medium-to-high-fidelity prototypes for the app's onboarding and key features. Finally, I was responsible for evaluating the solution through a cognitive walkthrough, which led to crucial design iterations and a more intuitive final product. My work ensured that the user's voice was at the center of every design decision, ultimately creating a solution that was not only innovative but also deeply empathetic.
Discovering the Problem through Research
We employed a mixed-methods research approach to deeply understand the user's journey.
Key Research Methods:
Literature Survey: To understand the cognitive load caused by airport signage.
Online Observation: Analyzing vlogs and blogs to understand real-world user frustrations.
Stakeholder Interviews: Speaking with a non-frequent, middle-aged traveler to uncover specific pain points.
Key Findings:
Through our research, we discovered that travelers face significant challenges with:
Communication Gaps
A non-native speaker almost missed his flight due to difficulty communicating with staff.
Intuitive Navigation
Users found it hard to locate essential amenities like restrooms and food courts without asking for help.
Terminal Transit
Switching between terminals was burdensome due to a lack of clear information.
Designing the Solution: WAYR
Based on our research, we ideated and developed the concept of WAYR, an augmented reality (AR) based mobile application. This solution was designed to deliver a seamless, personalized, multi-level way finding experience.
Key Design Decisions:
The core of our solution was the decision to use AR technology. This choice was a direct response to our finding that travelers suffer from information overload. AR allows us to simplify the environment by overlaying a clear, step-by-step path, reducing the cognitive load and making navigation effortless.
AR-Driven Navigation
The app uses augmented reality to provide a clear, visual path to the user's gate.
Personalized Experience
Users can select their preferred language and add checkpoints (e.g., a coffee shop, a restroom) to their journey.
Real-time updates
The app automatically updates the route and notifies the user if there are any changes to their flight schedule or gate.
Validation & Refinement
To validate our design, we conducted a cognitive walkthrough with an expert. We focused on two key tasks: navigating to the departure gate and navigating to the gate with two additional stops.
Key Design Decisions:
The walkthrough revealed critical areas for improvement in the prototype:
UI Clutter
The AR camera screen was too crowded with UI elements, hindering the primary function.
Onboarding
Novice users would require a more intuitive onboarding process to understand the AR functionality.
User Orientation
The app needed to provide assistance if the user was holding their phone incorrectly.
We implemented these changes in our final design, ensuring a cleaner interface, amore robust onboarding experience, and better user support.
The Final Prototype
Impact & Reflection
This project highlighted the profound impact UX design can have on a user's daily life.We learned that by focusing on a specific user group — novice and non-native speakers — we could create a solution that benefits all travelers. The project demonstrated the importance of empathetic, research-backed design and the value of an iterative design process.
Learnings:
Empathy is Key: The project reinforced the importance of building empathy for users, especially those in high-stress situations.
Simplicity is Design: The goal was not to add more information, but to present the right information at the right time, proving that less is often more.
AR as a Tool: We discovered the potential of augmented reality as a powerful tool for solving real-world navigation challenges.
This project was a fulfilling experience, and I'm proud of the collaborative effort that led to a solution that could truly improve the airport experience for millions.
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