Reimagining and streamlining internal operations
Improving Southwest Airline’s Wheelchair Assistance Service
An Overview
CHALLENGE
Providing adequate support to travelers with mobility needs has been a challenge due to the high demand for Southwest's wheelchair assistance service and disorganized communication.
Our goal was to improve the efficiency of the service and provide a more organized and reliable experience for passengers with limited mobility. To address this issue, we wanted to streamline the backend communications between airport coordinators and passenger service assistants for the airline's wheelchair assistance service.
ROLE
UX Designer & Researcher
DURATION
September 2022 - March 2023
SKILLS
UI/UX Design, Figma,
UX Research, Miro
TEAM
Project Manager, UX Researchers
SOLUTION
Through collaboration with our partners at Southwest Airlines, we designed a high-fidelity tablet prototype for a service management platform aimed at improving communication and organization between airport coordinators and passenger service assistants at Southwest terminals .
Our team conducted research by visiting the airport five times and conducting over 50 interviews with both customers and employees of Southwest and their competitors. Through these conversations, we uncovered the pain points experienced by both passengers requiring assistance and the employees responsible for providing it, including airport coordinators and passenger service assistants.
To support our understanding of travelers who need additional support in environments controlled by queues, we also conducted research with disability lab and airport volunteer program workers, and analogous services with queueing experiences.
Understanding the Wheelchair Assistance Service
PRIMARY USERS
Interviews with passengers with limited mobility, elderly travelers, and Southwest customers
Immersion research traveling with group of elderly travelers using Southwest's wheelchair assistance service at the airport
User journey mapping of wheelchair reservation process and wheelchair assistance service
Interviews and surveys with travelers who fly Southwest
SECONDARY PERSONAS & STAKEHOLDERS
Interviews and research of:
Southwest airport coordinators, passenger service assistants, customer service representatives
Airport coordinators and passenger service assistants of competing airlines
Disability lab workers at Shirley Ryan Ability Lab and airport volunteer program workers
Southwest Project Managers & Senior Designers
Service blueprint creation of wheelchair assistance service
Research of analogous services with queueing experiences such as restaurant reservation, Disneyland ride queueing, digital ordering systems, etc.
BY NARROWING DOWN OUR FOCUS TO SOUTHWEST EMPLOYEES, WE CREATED THE PROBLEM STATEMENT:
How might we streamline and organize the backend communications between Southwest’s wheelchair passenger service assistants and airport coordinators?
Personas
PRIMARY USERS
SECONDARY PERSONAS & STAKEHOLDERS
Identifying Areas of Opportunity
01
Increasing efficiency of backend communications
PROBLEM
The coordinators and passenger service assistants use walkie-talkies for communication, but the fast-paced and hectic environment of the airport can cause messages to be unclear or missed.
Communication takes place in person, requiring the coordinator to spend additional time searching for passenger service assistants within the terminal. Slow communication results in longer wait times and a lack of efficient service for passengers, leaving them under-supported.
SOLUTION
Make communication digital to reduce the need for walkie-talkies and for coordinators to walk to talk to passenger service assistants
Allow coordinators to manage the work of passenger service assistants for passengers from their work space
Allow service assistants to quickly and efficiently update their status of servicing passengers by scanning QR codes located around the airport
02
Improving transparency of information for queues
PROBLEM
Passengers can reserve wheelchairs ahead of time through its online system, however, many travelers also request the service as walk-in passengers. Southwest does not have a system to efficiently manage and track the waitlist status of their passengers, leading to frustration and lack of transparency for these passengers, especially in the time-sensitive environment of air travel.
SOLUTION
Automate the queueing system by prioritizing reserved passengers, check-in status, and start wait times for walk-in passengers
Increase transparency of information such as estimated wait times, status of passenger being matched with a service assistant
Scan boarding pass of walk-in passengers so information available to coordinators and service assistants is consistent with passengers who reserved beforehand
User Journey
Along the journey of our primary persona of passengers with limited mobility, we detailed the journey of the airport coordinator and passenger service assistants as the primary users of our digital platform.
Iteration & User Testing
User testing and feedback with airport coordinators and passenger service assistants at the airport helped us understand their needs for communication throughout the service process. We iterated on how we could best display information and integrate efficient forms of communication into our high-fidelity prototype.
Core Features
01
Coordinators can see the status of Passenger Service Assistants in the process
Assistants get matched to passengers through our priority algorithm for the waitlist system, and their status is clearly documented for coordinators based off of their location within the airport.
02
Coordinators can easily overlook and manage the waitlist
Coordinators are able to help walk-in passengers be added to the waitlist, manage the matching process, and manually adjust as needed, all from within the app.
03
Service assistants can give efficient status updates
Passenger service assistants can efficiently inform coordinators of their progress through status updates and by scanning QR codes located within the airport.
04
Service assistants are guided throughout the service process
Passenger service assistants can effectively service their passengers using all the details located within the app about the passenger's needs for the airport check-in, security, and boarding process.
Learnings & Reflections
Accessibility comes in many forms
I found my passion for designing to increase accessibility while I was getting to know the work of passenger service assistants and seeing the amount of energy they put in to help people who need them to get through the airport. Being able to design a platform to strengthen the service dedicated to people who need assistance allows me to help them in a different way, by providing accessibility through transparency of information and expectations. I hope to reduce the existing stressors that these passengers already face.
Sometimes, it's necessary to pivot
Our research challenged us to adapted to the limitations and feedback that we uncovered through the process. Initially, we prototyped a consumer-facing solution in the form of an in-app guide to help passengers gain clarity on the process of using the service. However, as we delved deeper into research, we realized that the problem was with the backend processes, and so we made the decision to redirected our efforts to helping the employees who provide the service halfway into our prototyping timeline. Nevertheless, making the change and rapid prototyping allowed us to focus on areas in which we can make a greater impact for our end users who need help getting around the airport.