SITA Airside
Mobile tool suite for airport staff. Supports group collaboration and digitized form management. SITA is a global IT company providing telecom services to the air transport industry.
When
2015 to 2016
for SITA
My role
Information architecture
Functional requirements
Interaction + visual design
Interaction design for admin website
Design guidelines for SITA iOS apps
Learnings
A new domain, air transportation, revealed its challenges and need for efficient tools
Information architecture
Design for tablet
iOS expertise
Digitized forms
I designed a form library for iPad that offered a unified view of all kinds of forms that people routinely use. Agents could check a form history and browse templates relevant to their job.
Two types of forms were covered, though they were presented in the same way in the library:
For simple routines, like reporting on runways’ condition, existing HTML templates were reused and I didn’t have to design those
For more complex and interactive procedures, such as turnaround timing and cargo loading, I created ad-hoc user interfaces
Group collaboration
Think WhatsApp, but specialized for airport agents. Designed for iPhone.
One challenge was to design a chat tool that would support both official and user-defined groups, as well as teamwork features such as task assignment and location sharing. Official groups, in particular, required considering admin aspects like who controls them, who can join them, etc.
Prior to any UI work I clarified the requirements, business logic and information architecture, creating a strong foundation and helping the team stay on the same page.
Ad-hoc interfaces
Some forms were too complex to be based on a mere HTML template. They required a bespoke native UI.
For example the Ramp operations precision timing form, shown below, which helps a supervisor monitor the time spent by a ground team during an aircraft’s turnaround. Visualizing the overall progress, the supervisor can anticipate delays. This is key because the longer the plane remains parked, the more the airport charges the airline.
Inspired by multi-track music sequencers, the UI provides an overview of how long operations are expected to take, warns if some run late, and can be filtered by operation status. Interaction is kept simple: the user records times by tapping an operation when it starts and tapping again when it’s done.
How we worked
A very geographically distributed team, with PM, designer, and devs all in different timezones. A study was conducted by SITA with some airports to shape the need. Design and development progressed in parallel, one feature group at a time. We presented prototypes to potential customers and adjusted based on feedback.
I organized the scope in feature groups, for each of which I produced:
Requirement list and definitions
Interaction design (wireframes)
Visual design (redlines & assets)
This made the spec easy to grasp and update. Requirement lists formalize business rules that aren’t related to the UI spec and are better off specified separately.
