Presented by Lisa Herrod (@scenariogirl)
The last but one full summary from UX Australia. See all related posts under the UX Australia category.
Day 2 saw an insightful presentation on the design of the in flight entertainment (IFE) system on the new Airbus A380. (Note up front that this is Qantas specific.) This was also the first time the project had been discussed as Lisa had been under an NDA since its beginnings. I found it a highly useful session.
Some back story
When coming back from England recently I was pretty surprised to find us at Gate 5 of Heathrow's Terminal 4, and staring out the window at this monster, the A380 'Hudson Fysh':
Compared to the crusty old British Airways 747 we flew for the outbound journey, the two variations on 'economy' class were miles apart. This was easily the best of all the long-haul flights I've done - and UK to Australia with just an hour's break is a bloody long way.
A big part of this positive experience (and a positive, flawless Qantas experience, no less), was the in flight entertainment. Dozens of great movies, albums and radio, all play on demand, touch screen interface, big decent screen. It definitely wasn't perfect; quite a bit of tapping about and a resistive touchscreen, but compared to the clunky handset-operated systems of old, it was easily the best IFE ever used.
Key points With all that to go on, I was keen to see more on its development. Some high level points:
- The IFE design was finished in 2005. The first planes weren't fitted and delivered until 2008.
- Secrecy around the interior designs and the epic delays from Airbus meant the design team never actually got to see an interior before the first plane was finished.
- In the business and first class suites, the suite controls themselves (right) were designed separately from the actual software, and weighed about 2.5KG each (very heavy!).
- Device elements concerned distance from screen, seat pitch screen size/resolution, Iconography and weight.
- 3 rounds of focus groups were used for the software testing.
- The test units the team had to work with were big, heavy, table-based boxes and screens. Nothing like the end products.
- Designing the system with first class in mind was very difficult, as Qantas has a policy of not contacting these customers for such purposes. Design with the users in mind, without actually talking to your users or seeing the environment they'd be in…
- This was 2005, no iPhones or iPod Touches. Touchscreens were still the same as they'd been for a long time - OK, but nothing to write home about.
- Flash was used for the entire IFE interface (much like the Q-A380 website as it turns out).
The UX Australia Twitter stream was fairly active during this presentation (link to the timeframe - around page 54 of search results) and some of it fairly disparaging; results in too much tap-tap-tap on the seat head, seats were really bad, clumsy design, Why is "Q" button for home etc.). I can't say any of that bothered me when using it, and the overriding sense having now seen the work behind the scenes was a job well done in very difficult circumstances.
The lack of real world testing is obviously not ideal, the delay in between finishing the system and the plane actually being ready was bound to mean the technology was out of date, (although, who knew just how far the iPhone would have advanced touch screen devices and a user's expectations of them), and the lack of a complete environment and heavy secrecy of the project would be seriously problematic.
In retrospect all of this was bound to look a little disjointed. If we had to design an intranet with this level of isolation from the intranet management team and very little user research, especially with key customers, the result would be usable but fairly ordinary. This system is way better than just usable.
Going back to my original thoughts; sure in practice the IFE is no iPhone, but compared to the existing plane IFEs it was/is well in front. Given more control and collaboration with other partners, plus the level of technology in use today, I'm sure the result would be much better too, and much more satisfactory from Lisa's point of view. As an example of pitfalls to try and avoid when developing a UX design, this was a valuable 45 minutes.
As an aside, you also have to feel for the teams responsible for the Boeing Dreamliner IFE fit-outs. They may have a wealth of advances in touchscreens to consider, but they must also be wondering if their systems will ever be used. No doubt they'll have some similar problems - the Dreamliner was being designed at the same time as the A380, and as far back as 2005 companies were competing to become approved IFE hardware to Boeing's yet-to-fly plane. The chances of one being delivered before 2011 are pretty slim.
