United Bag Scanner

Intro

United Airlines came to us for help replacing their legacy bag scanning system. This greenfield project included new hardware, new software and a new platform.

As the sole product designer on the team, I worked closely with stakeholders, developers, and product managers to research and design a completely new user experience. Our goal was to improve the existing luggage tracking process while bringing modern processes and technology equip to handle dynamic business goals.

‍The Challenge

Flying bags is big business, and it has to be done right. United needed to get rid of their old bag scanning system constrained by old hardware.

The capabilities of the legacy system had been stretched as far as it could. The current process was time intensive, error prone, and came at a high cost of user training. Furthermore, the system did not allow for easy analysis of data in order to a) find lost bags, and b) identify opportunities for process improvement. Process improvements for efficiency and accuracy were in essence, impossible.

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The Solution

By replacing the old hardware with an Android device with scanning capabilities, it would afford us limitless opportunities for new capabilities, new design patterns, and efficiency and experience improvements. 

Replacing this legacy application with modern technology was also the perfect opportunity to replace requirement driven development practices at United. Our outcome driven Agile processes would introduce test driven development, human centered design and lean product strategy. We enabled United with a modern software development process through delivery.

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Enablement through delivery

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I worked closely with business stakeholders to implement:

• User interviews
• Rapid Prototyping
• Usability testing
• On-site Observation 
• Assumption tracking and validation

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User interviews and Usability testing

The limitless opportunities that came with the new hardware and platform brought with it a flood of feature requests. People were excited to be able to be able to do all of the things they previously couldn't do. It was critical to work closely with stakeholders to align on outcomes over outputs and prioritize accordingly. 

We also worked against the desire to simply replicate the legacy system. The stakeholders of the project were superusers of the old system. They knew the ins and outs, and all of the complicated interactions.  It was difficult for them to look past the old design, because making it “better” meant making it different from what they were used to. 

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They had soft spot in their hearts for the legacy system and fear of change.

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To mitigate this risk, we brought them along on the HCD journey. We involved them in user interviews, and usability testing in order for them to hear directly from users when it came to improvements for efficiency gain and quality of life. By bringing them into the design process we opened their eyes to problems with the legacy system they just didn’t see before. 

In one particular focus group, we paired up Stakeholders with current users of the system and asked them to observe the users working through flows. It gave us the opportunity to listen to honest conversations and it shifted perspectives on what we could do differently. 

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Validating Assumptions through user research

We hypothesized that many of the user flows in the existing system were no longer utilized. We didn't want to rebuild the old system capabilities one for one, but we needed to balance rebuilding existing functionality with usability improvements and new capabilities.

To mitigate this risk, we looked at the feature requirements, not as feature requirements, but as assumptions that needed to be validated. We validated those assumptions through subject matter expert interviews and usability tests. Our systematic approach allowed us to determine what should be kept, what should be adjusted and what was no longer needed in the new world. 

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On site observation

We went on site for in person observation of the end to end process. We observed a multiple user roles and a variety of locations. We heard first hand the challenges of the old system and the expectations of the new.

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There's an intricate maze that the bags go through in the belly of the airport. 

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On site we learned that handlers often need to wear gloves. These gloves don't allow for the small phone interactions we’re used to in a commercial android app. It changed our sense of scale and screen flow, allowing for larger tap targets and clear messaging from farther away.

‍When it came to necessary interactions such as typing on the keyboard, we worked to separate the parts of the flow in which the users would be doing more physical work (scanning bags and loading), from the setup process (getting the app into the right “state”), in which they could pause and look more closely at the screen.

The old system had only audio user feedback of action confirmation. On site, we realized this was causing errors and rework, as users often couldn't hear the sounds. In the new app, we focused on adding large text and visible-from-a-far confirmation screens utilizing color when possible for both positive and negative feedback confirmation. 

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‍The Result

Through our work together, United realized the benefit of Agile software development. We shifted concepts from the old world, removed complexity and provided features quickly with usability improvements that users loved. 

As the application rolled out to users, the United Bag Scanner continued to be iterated upon, tracking toward business outcomes, KPIs, and user experiences. United came to us stuck in legacy and left with a modern application and processes equip to handle their ever evolving business goals.

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