The sector of General Aviation is massive, but most people are priced out of pursuing their interest in becoming a pilot. Over 10 weeks as a design team of one, I researched the problem, user-tested solutions, and prototyped an easy-to-use app that makes flying planes more accessible to all.
"Pilots need structure and transparency in their flying club so that they are treated fairly and feel safe."
There exists an incomplete solution to flying affordability in the form of aircraft co-ownership (known as flying clubs). I needed to start with research to find what makes them incomplete. Why aren't they very popular?
Data Review: Like any decent government agency, the FAA gathers and regularly publishes a huge breathe of statistics. There, in black and white, was the who, what, where, and how of U.S. pilots.
Contextual Observation: I immersed myself in general aviation through private pilot training. As a newly licensed pilot, I got a first-hand understanding of an otherwise opaque niche. (That's me in the adjacent video).
User Interviews: The climax of my research was interviews with several interest would-be and current pilots. Pilots are a logical, detail-oriented bunch, but I found their hesitations with flying clubs were emotionally driven.
I used affinity mapping to extract patterns from my interview notes. Users' most commonly expressed anxieties centered around getting reliable and fair access to their club airplane. From there it was revealed that it was the unknown quality of strangers that drove most of the hesitation around joining a flying club.
User flow charting, task analysis, and feature prioritization spawned ideas and sketches. In the research synthesis stage I found pilots would engage with their flying club in essentially 4 ways. So, in a mobile app solution, pilots would open the app to accomplish 1 of 4 main tasks. This provided the top-level structure:
Schedule: "I want to reserve time with the plane."
Logbook: "I want standardized procedures within the club and to see what everyone is up to."
Club Chat: "I want to communicate with other club members and not get left out."
Member Profile: "I want payment of monthly dues and variable costs handled securely and easily."
Creating a high-fidelity interactive prototype allowed for in-depth unmoderated user testing. Several tests were conducted with 8 users, each asking them to navigate the prototype to complete a particular task. The testing software tracked user clicks and paths and followed the actual task with open-ended questions and opinion scales.\
Iteration: Through testing I found more intuitive naming conventions and simplified some task paths.
Validation: In testing, users found their way to where they needed to go to complete their tasks every time. This validated that the app was intuitively structured and effective.
Aesthetic design that doesn't consider the user experience and context in which it lives is a failure. When designing the style guide, I operated with the intention of supporting and elevating the app's core goals through visual design. Sharp-edged, bold shapes lend credibility, navy blue and steel grey project seriousness, and sparingly used orange supports at-a-glance navigation.
© Jacob Whitlow