An In-Flight Entertainment rehaul for China's largest privately-owned airline and its 13 subsidiaries.
My responsibilities: Lead designer, User/UX Researcher & Analyst, Product Manager, Customer Ambassador
Project timeline: Q1 - Q4 2017
The core need: Create a new IFE suite for HNA Group's airline holdings and their global customers that aligned with their fleet retrofit using state-of-the-art (for the time) hardware.
HNA Group, which owned Hainan Airlines and 13 domestic Chinese airlines, was looking for a new in-flight entertainment system to complement their updated fleet. Thales was providing the tech and hardware, and Hainan Airlines decided to move forward with an in-house design for their suite of systems as well.
This was my first major project at Thales, and one that was certainly unforgettable!
HNA's retrofit included multiple form-factors depending on the class of seating. These included:
I needed to make a fair amount of technical considerations based on the hardware, including (but not limited to):
Beyond Hainan Airlines, HNA Group’s international airline, the holding group would be porting this interface to all 13 domestic subsidiaries, including Deer Jet, Beijing Capital Airlines, and Lucky Air. This was a culture I had no real prior experience navigating within, but was excited by the opportunity to listen and learn! Overall, the customer base for this airline would comprise of:
Project kickoff comprised of initial client brainstorming sessions, where they dictated their needs in terms of content, look and feel, and technical backend. The clients expressed wanting a few options to select from, so I began work on three concepts with slightly different content needs and structures:
This concept used the destination to add visual interest and excitement to the GUI, with overlays displaying helping add contrast to the body and nav elements.
This concept was an attempt at a bold, contemporary, and minimalist look and feel, with a contextual nav system that stacked as you explored. In this way, the user always had access to quickly navigate to anywhere in the GUI.
The last of the three concepts, Sojourn used HNA's content library to its fullest potential, with each screen using high-res hero images to wow users. Text and navigation was simple and clean, and even used as an artistic element on each main page. Simple animations confirmed user input on the touchscreen.
And the winner was…Sojourn!
HNA Group’s content library was their main investment for this interface, and Sojourn allowed them to fully capitalize on the various thumbnails, trailers, screenshots, and product images on a high-def screen. With the main design now selected, I began iterating on the initial concepts to come up with the overall IA and map out each user flow within this system for all 3 devices, including a new Kids Mode that contained parental controls and a separate, simplified interface for children.
This exercise also accounted for statefulness between each device, as the TPMU could be used both on its own and as a controller for the tablet and seat-back screen. As such, I constructed a complex user flow document and began designing each page.
Note: In the mapping below, the “Services” section and it’s contents were deprioritized during the final round of approvals.
Onboarding encompassed the idle and welcome screens, as well as a Help overlay and language selection.
The entertainment section included movies, TV, music, games, and Kids’ World, which held it’s own movies, music, TV, and game libraries.
Flight contained the interactive Maps product, as well as connecting flight info, tourism videos, and various About Us content.
Users could add any of the entertainment content to a playlist, allowing them to consolidate movies and shows to watch, music to listen to, and About Us content they were interested in. This was an editable section and users could add or remove content as needed.
Lastly, the system screens, which included the various Search and Settings pages available from anywhere in the system. Shown below are some of the handheld TPMU control schema, which fell under this category as well.
