22,8 Mio passengers, 621 flights a day and 181 approached destinations (data from 2015); International Vienna Airport is one of the leading ones in Europe and serves as platform between east and west. To satisfy the customer’s needs and experiences, a focus on the customers and the constant enhancement of the passengers’ satisfaction as well as the quality of the services are the main goals of the company. Thus, Vienna Airport wants to offer its customers an information system to fulfil the passengers’ and visitors’ need for information.
To secure the professional design and user-friendly operation of such an interactive information kiosk, USECON has been called in to this inter-divisional User Experience project. Based on a location concept, at the end of 2016 the first kiosks for the “lounge” area started to go live.
The lounge kiosk is part of an extensive information system, based on touch-screen-interaction to support the orientation and information of passengers and visitors at Vienna Airport. It is supposed to inform, in an appealing way, about the access authorisation to the lounges and shall replace the, sometimes static, information posters. Clearly, the additional benefit for the lounge-user, is the interactive communication, which helps to increase sales.
To find an extraordinary solution, which feeds the passengers’ appetite to try and fulfils the needs of the various target groups and passenger segmentations at the Vienna Airport, many factors needed to be considered. Alongside the special requirements regarding location and the user context airport, it was crucial to identify the interaction principles for a 46“touch screen in an optimal way. Also the specification of the passenger guiding system and abiding with technical and regulated (keyword accessibility) parameters needed to be taken in consideration.
In close co-operation with Vienna Airport, the whole concept for the various locations was developed. Alongside approved methods like context analysis and requirements workshop, initial-investigation to create innovative approaches for solution were considered.
The next step was to develop the information concept and comprehensive interaction design via a typical User Centred Design process. Attention was paid on eventual modular extension resp. individual adaptability of the system and a strict separation of interaction design and thematic visual design.
Experience Prototyping helped to create first drafts very quickly, which were then developed to a final design in iterative loops and constant co-ordination with the client. Not only interactive screens but also the embedment of the lounge kiosk furniture in the real context at the Vienna Airport were part of the final product.