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Redesigning Multi-Party Boarding for Efficiency and Ease

Achieving a 46% reduction in group boarding time through an innovative group-pass solution.

CLIENT
UNITED AIRLINES
YEAR
2024
role
UX Design
Product Management
THE PROBLEM
THE SOLUTION
THE APPROACH
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SEE DETAILED ANALYSIS

Each year, millions of families, and other groups travel together, making up a significant portion of United’s customer base.

Group boarding, especially family (with active kids) boarding often turns into a stressful and chaotic experience for parents, as they juggle restless children’d needs, multiple bags, and procedural hurdles like TSA security.

Meanwhile, gate agents must manually verify and process multiple documents while managing a continuous flow of passengers. Errors frequently occur due to task-switching and divided attention.

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What is the current family boarding process like?

As a result...

Why its important in the industry as a potential opportunity?

the solution

In 9 weeks, we delivered a wholistic design solution：a seamless one scan integrated design solution that removed bottlenecks and fostered passenger engagement

Customer Boarding Pass

Toggle between Single Pass and Group Pass

The group pass, highlights the group code and displays the total number of group members, their seat assignments so they can confirm everyone’s boarding details at a glance.

‘Edit group crew’ option for quick updates to accommodate various group dynamics.

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Customer Boarding Pass

Toggle between Single Pass and Group Pass

The group pass, highlights the group code and displays the total number of group members, their seat assignments so they can confirm everyone’s boarding details at a glance.

‘Edit group crew’ option for quick updates to accommodate various group dynamics.

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Gate Agent Scanner

Easier Group verification and board

The gate agent scans the boarding pass of any group member. A pop-up displays the list of remaining group members, allowing the gate agent to quickly verify and select passengers to board together.A more flexible and convenient way to support partial group boarding when needed.

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Research

Secondary Research

Understanding the current boarding ecosystem, and exploring the breadth of boarding challenges.

Secondary Research Finding 1

The only multi-party group ‘considerations’ discovered in the industry are for family travels. Reservations, Physical zones and boarding groups are the most common ways airlines handle multi-party passengers.

Secondary Research Finding 2

The Front stage interactions with the airline staff can make or break the experience for a passenger.

In an attempt to design for customers at scale, we needed to understand customer opinions, emotions and attitudes. We accomplished this by scrapping insights from online forums through quantitative research approaches.

Secondary Research Finding 3

Mental models and human behaviors while moving as a group are grossly underrated and underutilized.

Through our analogous research, I discovered that group movement behaviors often mirror 'herding' patterns seen in various contexts. Understanding these herding behaviors helped inform our design principles for group boarding, suggesting solutions that work with, rather than against, natural group dynamics.


Primary Research
Understanding the users’s mental models, goals & expectations

primary Research Finding 1

The boarding experience shows distinct patterns in how passengers manage anxiety and group dynamics, directly impacting boarding efficiency.

PRF 1.1 Group dynamics influence anxiety and behavior

We observed 3 distinct group types: 2 adults with small children <2yrs, Parent(s) with adult children - who have more autonomy and finally Adult children/travelers with elderly parents. In all three archetypes, the level of autonomy of dependents correlated to the passengers’ anxiety levels i.e the less autonomy a dependent had, the more stress was observed and the more likely, the passenger was to make an error while boarding.

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PRF 1.2 Passengers manage pre-flight anxiety through ritualistic behaviors

It was evident to notice mini rituals passengers performed pre-boarding. We noticed a wide range of rituals from partners with 4 children all under the age of 4 sharing beers before boarding to some parents tiring out kids faster by walking them around the gate, while some others preferred to pack up strollers in zipped bags provided by the airline before boarding.

Group dynamics observed were heavily influenced by level of autonomy
some ritualistic behaviors observed

primary Research Finding 2

We observed the critical challenge of managing multiple systems while maintaining passenger engagement creates a predictable pattern of errors and inefficiencies.

PRF 2.1 Gate agents must manage simultaneous tasks

Gate agents must constantly switch between: Digital and physical scanning systems, Passenger Engagement and verification, and Group management and individual processing. This creates a 70% error rate notable in groups of 3 or more people.

PRF 2.2 This system complexity impacts service delivery

Constant switching disrupts passenger engagement and forces attention away from human interaction.  Service quality suffers as technical tasks multiply

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synthesize

Synthesize

Focusing on the core issues from research to insights

First Principle Insight

The moment of truth is the interaction between passengers and the gate agent while boarding. This moment is often undermined and under-designed. By optimizing for this moment, we might increase operational efficiency by speeding things along, but also free the gate agent to interact and engage with passengers.

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Which synthesized area of focus would have the greatest impact on the client’s challenge ?

A decision matrix  Consequence Matrix evaluates and prioritizes a list of options and is a decision-making tool.The team first established a list of weighted criteria based on initial conversations with the client and then evaluated each option against those criteria.

ideate & design

Service blueprint + brainstorming

Using a service blueprint was a way to map out the overall experience. It was also a way to ideate around areas of possibilities when it came to problem solving for the original challenge and improving the overall group boarding experience

Service Blueprint with areas of opportunity to innovate for impact (stars)

Early design - Group Boarding Feature

Lo-Fi and Hi-Fi wireframes and prototypes were brought to our potential users for feedback and analysis. We collectively iterated with over 200 screens to get through to the final solution User Interface for group boarding.

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test & iterate

Validate scenarios
putting solutions in front of actual users and identify major problems with prototypes

Findings and insights from user test participants

All users liked the group boarding pass and the function to directly look up flight information.This was reassuring for us, since these two functions are our primary focus, and what distinguishes us from existing apps.

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Prototype Testing Finding 1

The prototype research sprint validated the use cases we had settled in on from the beginning from experienced passengers we tested with

“Its a nice to have for people traveling in groups, but its a necessity for families. I see the use case more for people with some level of familiarity with each other” - Participant, M, 64

Prototype Testing Finding 2

The timing of the opt-in option is as crucial as the group boarding feature.

“.. opting into group boarding should happen when people purchase their tickets rather than at the airport. Its always one more thing at the airport and I do not like that”

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Prototype Testing Finding 3

We received feedback on the layout and design elements and iterated multiple times

“.. opting into group boarding should happen when people purchase their tickets rather than at the airport. Its always one more thing at the airport and I do not like that”

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