Objective
Working with the Spafax design team, I was tasked in designing a cross platform, In-Flight Entertainment app which can house multiple BA products from Media, shopping to Dining. The service had to work via seatback, web and the native BA Play app.
The Team
Project Manager and Designer
How I helped
I designed an innovative and exciting new vision for the future of Airline In-Flight Entertainment for BA. Pushing the boundaries of the usefulness of digital content in air.
BA has been considering merging their In-Flight entertainment service with their long running High Life magazine, we were tasked in creating and conceptualising this idea and pitching it back to them. We decided to take the idea further by making a fully future proof service by combining all sources of BA's products from dining to shopping into a single product.
BA has been considering merging their In-Flight entertainment service with their long running High Life magazine, we were tasked in creating and conceptualising this idea and pitching it back to them. We decided to take the idea further by making a fully future proof service by combining all sources of BA's products from dining to shopping into a single product.
Ideation
We tackled this project in a fully holistic way, always keeping a constant synergy between the visuals and experience of the product to create something that is fresh, exciting and functional.
In terms of look and feel, BA has a very strong brand identity that has been embedded into the company for decades, but for this project we wanted to push the experience into a new direction. Encapsulating the engaging modern world of digital & social media, we transitioned the direction into this style, with exciting colours, bold types and content relevant to trending media. Working previously for BA in the past years and other airlines, I felt right at home with this one.
For the user experience we had a base already there that is a somewhat standard within inflight services, however we again wanted to push this further into new heights by taking heavy inspiration from content layout and recommendation based content in such services as Netflix, Youtube, and other streaming platforms. We know very well customers are used to this type of user experience so tried to establish something similar throughout the product that keeps the user constantly engaged in the product with a very recognisable layout.
In terms of look and feel, BA has a very strong brand identity that has been embedded into the company for decades, but for this project we wanted to push the experience into a new direction. Encapsulating the engaging modern world of digital & social media, we transitioned the direction into this style, with exciting colours, bold types and content relevant to trending media. Working previously for BA in the past years and other airlines, I felt right at home with this one.
For the user experience we had a base already there that is a somewhat standard within inflight services, however we again wanted to push this further into new heights by taking heavy inspiration from content layout and recommendation based content in such services as Netflix, Youtube, and other streaming platforms. We know very well customers are used to this type of user experience so tried to establish something similar throughout the product that keeps the user constantly engaged in the product with a very recognisable layout.
Visual Research & Design
The .Play service had to merge elements of the High Life magazine. Whilst ideating the product we realised early on that we didn't want to follow suit of other airlines and just connect static articles into the experience. We wanted to retain the entertainment engagement aspect thus decided to research online travel services and took inspiration from the likes of tripadvisor and other travel sites to create a fully functional travel & exploring element. We realised from data that customers would enjoy not only learning more about their destination but also having the ability to book services such as hotels, dining as well as activities whilst in the air.
To further push user engagement we also took heavy inspiration of social media influences in current society and incorporated elements of tagging, sharing and commenting BA Play content via TikTok and other social outlets within the app version of the product.
To bring all our ideas and research together I finally analysed user pain points of current inflight services, such as what users dislike, what they would want and how they would want it into the UX portion of the design process. Ultimately as well as creating a new product, using the UI we wanted to also resolve current issues users face with other live inflight services to create a beautifully simple experience that can be accessible and enjoyed by a large demographic.
Final bits & Conclusion
For the last stages of the BA Play product we created a design system which could be used as a base if pushed into production and tied the content together in marketing collateral such as the personalised emails in the example below. The goal of this product was to visualise an exciting new and social way of exploring inflight services via air travel through personalised content and educating the user with their destination. We believe we achieved this target with the final deliverable.
Ultimately this is an industry that has been stagnant in it's ways of delivering content and services for a long time, we wanted to visualise a disruptive piece of technology that can push some new form of excitement into this space.
Ultimately this is an industry that has been stagnant in it's ways of delivering content and services for a long time, we wanted to visualise a disruptive piece of technology that can push some new form of excitement into this space.
