We took advantage of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport’s (SeaTac) visitor pass program and spent half a day observing passengers’ behaviors after security checkpoint. We spent our time at the international gates since travelers typically get to their gates earlier than domestic flights. Areas we focused on included moments of frustration and joy, activities travelers do in the waiting area, and how people respond to their surrounding environment.

Our team had a lot of notes from our field investigation and interviews at SeaTac. To distill down the data, we grouped our notes into themes like “pre-boarding behaviors & feelings” or “activities while waiting”. We drafted findings for each of the themes and through the process of dot-voting, we picked the top three findings to ideate upon.

We landed on these three findings:

Using the three findings from our field observation, we drafted 44 ideas via concept sketches that would improve the airport pre-boarding experience. Many of the ideas overlapped so we grouped similar ideas to help simplify down-selection. Grouping similar ideas substantially downsized our pool of ideas.

To narrow down, I proposed that we use design principles to guide our down-selection. We wanted whatever we designed to uphold the following attributes:

For each of the top five ideas, we marked down which design principles we thought the idea encapsulated. While we were able to eliminate the ideas that met fewer design principles, we were left with a tie between two ideas. We dot-voted once again to pick the top idea. While the idea we chose had a majority vote, there was disagreement. I guided my team to think about choosing an idea with a narrower scope. After hours of discussion, debate, and ultimately compromise, we landed on the top idea: a reservation system for overhead bins.

To better understand the end-to-end offering of our idea, we created a customer journey map. The journey maps out the user’s thoughts and emotions throughout the key touchpoints of the service. We  identified the front-end and back-end people and things that the user interacts with at each touchpoint.

While it was important for us to understand the big picture of the user journey, it was also necessary for us to align on the specific steps of the user journey as well as consider the edge cases. We made user flow charts with decision tree elements to understand both the front-end and back-end steps of the service.

At check-in, passengers will indicate whether or not they intend to bring a carry-on bag. After seat selection, passengers are auto-assigned an overhead bin for their carry-on bag. The auto-assignment will be shown on a screen with the overhead bin highlighted on a seat selection chart.

Past security checkpoint, passengers have the option of dropping off their carry-on bag at the gate to be pre-loaded into their designated overhead bin. They will sign up for drop-off using a kiosk at the designated gate. This service allows passengers to enjoy the pre-boarding experience without the burden of their carry-on (but do not have to check in their bags), as well as streamline the boarding process.

Passengers can sign up for notifications after dropping off their carry-on to keep track of their bag status. Notifications will be sent via the Alaska Airlines app at every key touchpoint to communicate to passengers that their carry-on is on track towards being loaded into the designated bin.

Our team considered scenarios where a passenger may not be able to secure a nearby overhead bin (i.e. the plane’s overhead bin space cannot accommodate all passengers’ carry-on items). We had a few ideas for these edge cases but ultimately landed on providing these passengers with complementary air miles to promote customer loyalty. Additionally, passengers have the option to join a waitlist at the gate, in case overhead bin space near their seat is made available last minute.