THE NEED

Alaska, and Horizon Airlines were to transitioning their internal reporting systems into a digital format. The intent was to improve employee experience and expedite the process to increase overall reporting. The company determined the best process would be to create a mobile application that could be used on company phones. The gaps were in how best to portray the information and incorporate it into a mobile application. This was made more difficult since each department had radically differing information and requests to display to the user.

MY ROLE

As the primary UX designer I gathered information from five different departments across both Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air. This helped clarify assumptions made by the project team. I designed prototyped and tested multiple elements of the application before handing the work off to developers. My focus was to ensure an improvement from the current process which was not adapted for mobile use. 

The Solution

The solutions that this application provides it's users include easier and more friendly access to report incidents as they happen, higher levels of reporting, and simplification of the process over current web based systems. The employee and their schedules were central to defining the best case experience to provide greater levels of safety and of product adoption while on the ground and in the air. 

THE PROCESS

The team worked in an agile environment where the product was broken into sprints. These were defined in part by differing internal departments depending on time schedules. I incorporated high level information that was provided by Alaska/Horizon and created a sitemap as a template for the mobile experience. In order to also verify assumptions and designs through the process, I met with including multiple departments and conducted user testing sessions to see where the most impactful improvement could be made. This was especially helpful in cases where there was disagreement between the departments and development teams. Throughout this process the designs were rapidly prototyped and tested. Once the designs met the needs of the department they were signed off and  sent to the dev team. This cycle was repeated each sprint as the project resolved the applications needs and requirements.

UX Deliverables

User research - Weekly meeting and Information was provided by SME's and internal teams. User interviews and user testing was done to verify the assumptions and clarify issues with current processes.

User stories - created per department to build personas with common needs that represented and resolved barriers for employees in reporting. These included issues with accessibility, timing of incidents and access to technology.

Rapid prototyping - Important to incorporate new information quickly to ensure teams sees that their input in valuable and being incorporated in iterative designs.

User Feedback

testing showed positive responses to the improvements that were being designed and developed. Users found mobile access to be a great benefit.  A lot of useful information and suggestions were provided by the internal employees, which were incorporated in further iterations including form flow and process hierarchy. This conversation with the employees also spotlighted where present assumptions were falling short and provided a list of opportunities in future development including incorporating company mobile apps together to avoid application fatigue. 

Reflections

This project provided an excellent experience on how the agile process can provide a collaborative environment between designers and developers. The company's focus on creating positive user experiences for their employees was kept central in every process and conversation.  What this allowed the teams to do was pivot as information was provided demonstrating where real impactful change could be made. 

Though the tool was successful in providing consistent access to incident reporting, the next steps would be in investigating how best to incorporate this application with other required applications that are used by employees into a seamless experience.  Presently with the number of applications in use there is a real frustration  expressed by employees there might be too many tools to know where to go. Further projects should look for ways to integrate the purposes/needs of these tools together to limit the burden on the employees.