How would you improve the airport experience?

Please note that this is based on my response during a mock that I recently had. I attempted to not use framework as a crutch for the first time. It would be good to know how to tweak my attempt of trying to fly solo.

Ok as I think of this, I have few questions.

1.     When we say airport experience can we assume we are looking at experience at the airport vs. flying on the plane itself?

a.     Me: Let’s stick to airport experience or everything prior to flying just because changing the flight experience in itself has limited things we could possibly do it since airline and FAA somewhat would have a heavy involvement on this + most people will associate bad experience that is in hands of airline to be instead be associated to our product. + Users experience of travel starts bit before getting to the airport but still majorly is affected at the airport itself. More so with Security.

2.     Can we assume to look at just US since I am more familiar with the US market? (yes)

3.     Are we thinking of hardware product or software? (either)

4.     Are we thinking of a Google product or doesn’t matter? (Google)

Ok so thinking of it being a Google product it might be good to leverage plethora of user information Google already has to see if we can put those to use to improve user experience (essentially stating Google’s mission but hiding it).

As I think of user experience, I think large portion of people who would be important to think of would be travelers. Yes, there are also other players such as employees at the airport, mechanics of the planes, baggage handlers, etc. but I think we have bigger pool to address by looking at travelers. + Employees have a very narrow set of activities they do day in day out and while things may not be perfect they do get used to the experience and don’t even notice it. While travelers don’t fly everyday, except the consultants maybe, so it be important to improve their experience and not repel them to an experience of airport visit.

Commentary: I could have segmented my users here (vendors, employees, travelers and there are various types of travelers such as consultants, tourists, elderly, family with kids, etc.) but I didn’t (wanted to not use framework as a crutch).

Interviewer: Why not focus on employees or other groups vs. travelers?

Me: Good question. We could focus on those if you wanted to. Honestly, as a PM I depend on user research to understand my users before I can step into their shoes to understand their needs. Here, we don’t have user research and I have been a traveler before and since I understand that side of it, for this case, we can go with that?

Me: So I am thinking of phases I go through because that will help me focus on specific areas to help with. My journey kinda starts from thinking about the right time to leave for the airport, hiring a cab, getting to the cab (this is sometimes stressful since I am always getting to airport at last min and I see traffic by the terminal so my cab can’t get to the entrance fast enough), check-in at the airport, security (this one is painful and almost everyone I have talked to has raised this to be their biggest pain) and then life post-security. I think the biggest areas of pain points are check-in process and security so I would like to take a few minutes to think of some solutions.

Commentary: I didn’t necessarily go into pain points for Security and Check-in. Intention was to not follow framework to the T and to shorten the time I spend on solving a case.

Me:

Let’s address check-in process first –

1.     People who are on time-constraint don’t want to wait for kiosk to open up to print boarding pass. So a feature where when you are near the kiosk, you use Bluetooth or some sort of tech to connect with kiosk network, and you put yourself on list. On top of the kiosk, whichever one opens up first, your name appears so no one else takes it and you get your turn without having to wait much or issues like you are approaching it but someone else took it.

2.     When you check-in online, you get a QR code which you scan at the kiosk and you don’t need to enter any info (Frequent flyer #, credit card, last /first name, etc.) and it will just print your board pass. So it will be all done in a zip vs. now.

3.     When you check-in at home / hotel on a computer, it prints bag tags. This will simplify the process of having it print bag tags at airport and causing lines and chaos because some people can’t figure out how to easily put those on (well I can’t easily figure out and I have done it many times).

In the grand scheme of things I would like to eliminate 1 and 3. 3 isn’t much of a needle moving lift and I don’t see Google putting money and their expertise on something this small. This is just an enhancement and not even a product in my eyes. #1 I don’t see adding that much value to user because most traffic at kiosk is generally on Monday mornings and Thursday evenings when consultants fly and usually even during those times usually there is only 1 or 2-3 people waiting ahead of you for that kiosk. So not really a problem + this solves more so an operational issue if at all.

Let’s move on to Security and see if I can identify anything here.

1.     Integrate with APIs from federal government that tracks your data (you can’t see what it has on you) in terms of safety as a passenger / criminal and terrorists records, etc. When you entry the door of an airport, there is a device at the door that automatically scans you using your phone and information and puts a Green TSA check mark. Then when you get to security, you just waive your phone and eliminate credit card checks, boarding pass checks, etc. This would be hence a hardware / software product. I think this is a bigger thing for Google to get involved with then the prior solutions. I also think, this would speeden the security process and add value to user experience.

2.     I see lot of people struggle to lift heavy bags and put the on the belt. These people often are elderly and/or family with kid in hand. Instead, a flat bed conveyor belt at floor level where you just leave your bags upright as you were strolling them and you don’t have to take out anything at all and it will scan it all.

So I just realized that #2 isn’t much of a product that Google can add value to since this isn’t a needle moving invention. I really doubt how many users will be helped with this. So let’s eliminate that. Also, before I get to evaluating my solutions, let me see if the solution #2 from check-in is worth to focus on. It’s a solution yes and it will surely add value to user experience, however, again I don’t think this is a big enough thing for Google to help resolve. This isn’t even an invention and merely a feature at best.

I do think that #1 aspect is solution #1 for Security. Here, we would have to design hardware and software products. There are potentially issues that we may face such as with # of people flowing through the door at the same time, would solution accurately be able to scan people walking through? Also, what if there is a maintenance issue with the hardware and all of them are down at a single door? IF airport has already been fully live and operationally depended on less lines due to this feature, then there would be less TSA staff and now all of a sudden no one is checked so now limited staff would have to handle all these passengers. It would be a nightmare at the airport. But from an implementation standpoint, I think we can find solutions such as backup secondary hardware installed next to it that’s connected to a different network and power supply and infrastructure. Also, it’s possibly for cameras to scan this fast since this tech is already proven at highway I-Pass systems across the country. Also, value add is high, 5, on a scale of 1-5 5 being the highest. C = 3 here.

When we go live, I would want to see if this feature was successfully in terms of helping improve user experience of travelers and 1 good way to measure this might be to look at NPS. Another aspect may be # of users using this product but am not sure if this is truly appropriate KPI since people don’t fly everyday.

I then summarized.