RESEARCH
Airline travel should be exciting and easy, but sometimes this can be over-shadowed by a frustrating user experience. Long travel times can’t always be avoided, but when it does happen airport environments don’t always have your back. So, what actually happens when you are traveling? Generally it is a lot of waiting whether it is inline for ticketing, security, grabbing a snack, or waiting at the terminal for your flight.
That process flow is only for one flight, but what if you have a longer time caused by delays or layovers? This is where the experience can be exhausting. Through surveys and user interviews I found the common seating areas are one of the culprits. If a passenger is traveling for extended periods of time they become tired and any personal electronics run low on battery. In most common areas the seating is singular without ways to ‘lounge’ and rest, or seat large groups together. Charging stations for personal electronics are usually hard to find and not in convenient locations.
DEVELOPMENT
With this research in mind I wanted to focus on the common area furniture as a way to solve this pain point for the user. The new design needed to address the pain areas, but also create an environment that inspired excitement for travel. I used the airplane itself for inspiration. I wanted to replicate the bent metal and aerodynamic style will still remaining comfortable. The seating should be dynamic and able to fit various sized spaces. It also needed to be modular to support various types of travelers. This would allow larger groups to sit together while still providing areas for single travelers and lounging.
Designs were conceptualized and refined through hand sketching. There would be three modular sections of seating that could be assembled together to create different seating variations. There is a singular seat, corner section, and lounge end-cap. The final concept would be created using Rhino 3D and visualized with KeyShot renderings.
