User Centred Design, for the long haul.
Posted on | March 8, 2010
During a 9 month project with IDEO, Air New Zealand took a user centred approach to improve seating design for their long haul services. They built full scale prototypes of cabin interiors to carry out design research, evaluating seating and service concepts with real passengers.
The project began in 2007 with a goal of understanding passenger needs during long haul flights. Following extensive interviewing of passengers and flight attendants, a design team built seat concepts from polystyrene and cardboard.
Paid actors, as well as customers sat (or lay) through three hour research sessions simulating the in-flight experience. The actors were included to enhance the sense of realism, in addition to engine noise and full cabin service.
Finding a point of difference is a challenge for airlines. While Qantas’ recent design efforts focussed on the aesthetic, commissioning Marc Newson to add a layer of style to the A380 interior, Air New Zealand choose to tackle the challenge from the customer’s viewpoint, leaving style out of the question until the functionality was humming.
As well as researching the way passengers used the seating concepts, a ‘fresh eyes’ approach was taken when selecting a design team. Air New Zealand opted to work with industrial designers who had ergonomics experience, but were new to airline seating, avoid preconceptions, maximising freedom to take risks and innovate.
A groundbreaking three year project with User Centred Design at the heart, resulting in true innovation based on fresh thinking and real customer insight.
What a dream project.
Watch an unexpectedly cheesy 2min video which will give you some glimpses into the process.
View the website created to showcase the new seating types
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7 Responses to “User Centred Design, for the long haul.”
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March 8th, 2010 @ 10:54 am
I wonder is Ryan air is working on a similar project. Their’s probably involves packing crates or straight jackets.
March 8th, 2010 @ 10:53 pm
When I saw the Skycouch profiled in the NZ press recently, I was struck by two thoughts: first, this changes the game significantly and is the single biggest differentiator for the economy class market I’ve seen. Second, why has it taken so long?
Perhaps this answers the question posed in your Oct 26 post Air New Zealand listens to customers, Or do they?
March 9th, 2010 @ 7:19 am
Hi Nick. Great post. A couple of the facts were wrong though – IDEO was only involved at the initial stages. Most of the work you’ve described in this post was done by Optimal Usability. The video makes it look like it was all IDEO though
Check out http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/business/3351638/Method-acting-helps-cuddle-class-take-off
Hope all is well!
Trent
March 16th, 2010 @ 12:02 pm
That promo video they did is awful and a shame that IDEO got most of the credit for the work – obviously some kiwi ingenuity and good common sense in there as well.
Great to see UX, CX (or whatever people choose to call it) – moving out of the computer screen and into other areas – we need more of this.
Method Acting eh? Sounds familiar…
http://www.zefamedia.com/human-nature/bring-your-personas-to-life/
March 16th, 2010 @ 12:29 pm
Heya Zef, yes indeed I was so pleased to hear from Trent that some home-grown smarts were behind this top work. I agree, great to be stepping away from the screen too, I’ve been working on an ‘out of box’ user research project where customer behaviour revealed some tricky real world design challenges to the packaging designers.
July 23rd, 2010 @ 11:58 pm
This is all great for all the reasons everyone has mentioned but I’m struck by the fact that in very many years of long-haul flight taking I’ve pretty much never had 3 seats to myself and at best had to share 3 seats with a stranger. What is the etiquette for snuggling up in that case?
July 24th, 2010 @ 3:27 pm
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