Elegant and holistic flight planning tool for modern aviation
DESIGNED FOR
Honeywell while working for Industry (agency), 2016
MY ROLE
Design Researcher, UX, UI, Key Animations
Honeywell approached our team to audit their existing pilot-assistance app. We found a fragmented experience within an astounding array of highly technical tools for flight planning, each of which appearing to be a standalone app within a larger one. Spending time with app users, small-fleet commercial pilots, illuminated their journey from start to finish - including their obstacles, pain points, opportunities, and high to low priorities.
Elegant and holistic flight planning tool for modern aviation
DESIGNED FOR
Honeywell while working for Industry (agency), 2016
MY ROLE
Design Researcher, UX, UI, Key Animations
Honeywell approached our team to audit their existing pilot-assistance app. We found a fragmented experience within an astounding array of highly technical tools for flight planning, each of which appearing to be a standalone app within a larger one. Spending time with app users, small-fleet commercial pilots, illuminated their journey from start to finish - including their obstacles, pain points, opportunities, and high to low priorities.
Experience Design
A key to resolving the fragmented app experience was to organize it's tools into a mental model pilots could make sense of. Pilots want different tools and information at each stage, and grouping features by the progression from planning, pre-flight, take-off, to landing helped streamline access to them.
Beyond sensible navigation, we learned they wanted the ability to collect and save information pertaining to each trip. The Trip Kit was created to symbolize their digital flight bag, containing only route-specific information that is reliably available without distraction. From this, filing Flight Plans for approval with the FAA became a simple process of submitting relevant information from the Trip Kit with the press of a button. In Go-Fly mode, real-time map views and overlays become central to the experience, while Trip Kit information stays a single tap away navigationally.
Interaction Design
Humanizing the highly-technical was the goal when developing a unifying interaction guideline for Pilot Wings. Clean, modern, and precise elements with high legibility were developed as building blocks for interaction, conveying the esteemed professionalism of aviation. Animations were tailored to communicate the app's layered-navigation - drawers and modals slide into view to give more spatial presence. A pre-existing palette for conveying route types was enhanced with higher contrast colors against a monotone interface, save for the use of color sparingly to indicate alerts. Day and Night modes further helped enhance visibility in each environment. Iconography was updated for legibility and consistency as well.
