Southwest Airlines Task Redesign | Redesigning the wayfinding experience

Timeline: 3 weeks
Role: Sole designer and researcher
Tools: Figma

Skills: UX/UI design, UX research, user journey mapping, user flows, content mapping, copywriting, sketches, low fidelity wireframing, high fidelity wireframing, visual design, graphic design

Travelling is already a stressful experience. Not knowing where to go and what to do in an unfamiliar airport makes things even more frustrating. Whilst airline apps have evolved to provide some vital information like boarding passes or flight updates, these apps - even for large carriers like Southwest - don’t solve any of the issues excludings paperwork or ads - especially with wayfinding.

The goal of any passenger at an airport is to go through the necessary procedures and get to their gate ASAP. It’s an anxious experience no matter how early you are for your flight. Users have to navigate through a busy airport exclusively off of signage - without any information about potential obstacles or what the most efficient path through them might be. Despite this being a recurrent issue, airline apps are not particularly helpful in addressing this concern either. In terms of the Southwest app, I observed similar patterns. Whilst they offered a digital boarding pass option and information about their flights, a majority of the application consisted of links to old webpages and information about their promotional offers - neither of which are very helpul to the passenger in terms of process preceding the actual travel.

This led me to my Problem Statement:
In the context of the Southwest Airlines app, how might I improve the wayfinding experience and better assist the user with the steps leading up to their flight?

To start off, I wanted to conduct various forms of UX research to figure out:
What does the Southwest Airlines App currently look like? What is the average pre-flight experience and where is support needed?

Method #1 - Content Mapping - Learn about the Southwest app as it is and any patterns within it
I used screenshots of the Southwest App and Figma to make content maps of the various screens and steps that a user goes through to find information about the airports they are travelling to/from. This process started off at the Home Page and navigated through menus to reach a search bar and unsucessfully attempt to find information via the same. My conclusions from this process were:

Observations about the UX

A majority of the content is marketing
Most of the information does not exist as a page on the application, but is instead stored in outdated webpages that most of the app
Information is also hidden behind subheaders within the menu
Most of the information that actually helps users is placed below subheadings concerning points or services provided

Observations about the UI

The hierarchy of the menu - especially in terms of typography - is not user-friendly and not the most accessible (especially on mobile)
The actual flight information exists exclusively as a small bar at the top of the screen and nowhere else
The overall UI appears outdated and not functional
Some of the content is center-justified and harder to read

*please click on the arrows to navigate between the content maps

Method #2 - User Journey Mapping - Breaking down the process from a user’s perspective
The user journey mapping method helped me visualize the experience as a whole and better evaluate the opportunities for improvement. The “pain points” and “feelings and thoughts” steps of this process were most helpful to me as they helped put into perspective exactly what the user’s priorities in the situation were and made it easier to work out which concerns were of greater importance.

The user journey led me to the following conclusions:

Users want as much information as possible

Users spend a majority of their time trying to decipher what their next step should be. The more information they have, the more at ease they will feel.

Users need this information as early as it can be provided

Travel is all about planning. It is significantly easier to plan every part of their journey the sooner they receive necessary information.

Visual hierarchy can make an exceptional difference

Using color, typographical and compositional hierarchy to convey key information is the easiest way to get through to a stressed user.

Based on the judgements I reached through my research,

I thought a “virtual walkthrough assistant” would be the best wayfinding solution as it could be adapted for a range of user needs, could guide the user beyond simply a map and would not require major adjustment to the rest of the Southwest Airlines app.

This virtual assistant would help the user by prompting them with instructions on the next step in their journey in the form of these pop-up card at the bottom of their screen. These interactive cards would show customized information based on the user’s journey, what steps they have already completed, their destination and more. If a user was confused about any part of the process, they would be able to “replay” the process and walk themselves through it again. Lastly, the user still has the freedom to completely opt out of this feature if they choose to but would be able to access it again using the icon for the walkthrough assistant shown above.

*please click on the arrows to navigate between the cards

Here’s what a few of the essential travel processes with the virtual walkthrough assistant would look like:

1. Checking in online for your flight

These are the cards that users would see prior to their flight. It would notify them with instructions to check in online and potentially check in any baggage online as well. The user could interact with the checkboxes to then respond with which of these tasks they have completed and which they would like further guidance on. Based on the same, this flow would end with showing the user their digital boarding pass or instructions on how to access it once they have checked in for their flight. This puts information about the journey in front of the user before in a simple way before they even check in.

2. Accessing your boarding pass and a map to find your way around

Once the user has checked in, the user will be able to access their digital boarding pass. They will also be able to access the wayfinding and map feature from both their boarding pass and the Home Page. This provides them with easy to acces visual touchpoints to learn more information early and also familiarize themselves witht the airport. This may be prior to them actually reaching the airport, but as established earlier, the more information and the earlier, the less stressed the user.

3. Checking in baggage or heading to security when you do reach the airport

After the user has checked in online and reaches the airport. This series of proimpts would then inform them of how to proceed with printing out tags to check in their baggage or heading to security. This specific GIF focuses on the first option of checking in baggage in this scenario.

4. Checking in baggage or heading to security when you do reach the airport

This is another instance of the flow mentioned above. However, in this situation, the user does not need to check in their bags and wishes to head to security instead. Hence, the walkthrough assistant guides them to the “airport maps” or wayfinding feature and guides them to their next task.

5. Relaxing before the flight or trying to find their gate

Once the user has finished dealing with the check in, baggage, and security procedures, they may want to check out their gate or maybe grab a snack prior to the flight. Here’s where the wayfinding or “airport maps” feature comes in. It works like a standard map function with the addition of airport specific information like proximity to a gate or terminal specific information. Additionally, the wayfinding feature also displays wait times for the location in question - which can be viewed by in the bottom right corner.

Lastly,

Here’s some takeaways and future considerations I had about this project as a whole:

Short term goals:

Think about how intra-airport transport (trains, buses, etc.) or even showing cardinal directions as a part of my wayfinding feature might help improve it
Examine how I might be able to show what the various floors in an airport might look like

Long term product and UX considerations:

How might an AR/VR feature help with this assistant?
Is there some improvements I could make to the feature to help out my user from a mental health perspective and make it less stressful?

Thank you for reading this case study and the full prototype and research can be viewed here!

Hello,
I’m Dipthi Dinesh (she/her)

UX Design and Research

1. ToolTrade

2. Southwest Airlines:
Walkthrough Assistant

Branding

1. Museum of Spice

2. The Redbull Redesign

Motion Design

1. Somebody Feed Phil

2. Memories of Mumbai

Southwest Airlines Task Redesign | Redesigning the wayfinding experience

This led me to my Problem Statement:
In the context of the Southwest Airlines app, how might I improve the wayfinding experience and better assist the user with the steps leading up to their flight?

To start off, I wanted to conduct various forms of UX research to figure out:
What does the Southwest Airlines App currently look like? What is the average pre-flight experience and where is support needed?

The user journey led me to the following conclusions:

Users want as much information as possible

Users need this information as early as it can be provided

Visual hierarchy can make an exceptional difference

Based on the judgements I reached through my research,

I thought a “virtual walkthrough assistant” would be the best wayfinding solution as it could be adapted for a range of user needs, could guide the user beyond simply a map and would not require major adjustment to the rest of the Southwest Airlines app.

Here’s what a few of the essential travel processes with the virtual walkthrough assistant would look like:

1. Checking in online for your flight

2. Accessing your boarding pass and a map to find your way around

3. Checking in baggage or heading to security when you do reach the airport

4. Checking in baggage or heading to security when you do reach the airport

4. Checking in baggage or heading to security when you do reach the airport

5. Relaxing before the flight or trying to find their gate

Lastly,

Here’s some takeaways and future considerations I had about this project as a whole:

Hello, I’m Dipthi Dinesh (she/her)

UX Design and Research

1. ToolTrade

2. Southwest Airlines: Walkthrough Assistant

Branding

1. Museum of Spice

2. The Redbull Redesign

Motion Design

1. Somebody Feed Phil

2. Memories of Mumbai

Southwest Airlines Task Redesign | Redesigning the wayfinding experience

This led me to my Problem Statement:In the context of the Southwest Airlines app, how might I improve the wayfinding experience and better assist the user with the steps leading up to their flight?

To start off, I wanted to conduct various forms of UX research to figure out:What does the Southwest Airlines App currently look like? What is the average pre-flight experience and where is support needed?

The user journey led me to the following conclusions:

Users want as much information as possible

Users need this information as early as it can be provided

Visual hierarchy can make an exceptional difference

Based on the judgements I reached through my research,

I thought a “virtual walkthrough assistant” would be the best wayfinding solution as it could be adapted for a range of user needs, could guide the user beyond simply a map and would not require major adjustment to the rest of the Southwest Airlines app.

Here’s what a few of the essential travel processes with the virtual walkthrough assistant would look like:

1. Checking in online for your flight

2. Accessing your boarding pass and a map to find your way around

3. Checking in baggage or heading to security when you do reach the airport

4. Checking in baggage or heading to security when you do reach the airport

4. Checking in baggage or heading to security when you do reach the airport

5. Relaxing before the flight or trying to find their gate

Lastly,

Here’s some takeaways and future considerations I had about this project as a whole:

Hello,
I’m Dipthi Dinesh (she/her)

2. Southwest Airlines:
Walkthrough Assistant

This led me to my Problem Statement:
In the context of the Southwest Airlines app, how might I improve the wayfinding experience and better assist the user with the steps leading up to their flight?

To start off, I wanted to conduct various forms of UX research to figure out:
What does the Southwest Airlines App currently look like? What is the average pre-flight experience and where is support needed?