Aéroport de Paris Indoor Map

Context

Aéroport de Paris (ADP) manages two major airports in Paris. The connected hubs are complex to navigate. To help the passengers, ADP puts effort into Kiosk and mobile apps to guide them. Our redesign goal was to lead clients to usable indoor map design.

Outcome

Our reference design helped to correct the misconception on the interactive map, and provided the foundation for their map program strategy and roadmap.

We continued beyond the initial order of design for a kiosk. We continued to create variations for mobile and extra-large kiosk (84 inches) displays.

Ways of Working

Our primary focus was in Sprint 0 with workshops to set the visions, and provide spec document for developers.

Onsite visits

To understand the passengers and the relationship between physical signage and Kiosk locations, we went on visiting both airports: One full day visit of Orly airport and a 2-day visit for Charles De Gaulles. It is practically an expedition to a new town.

Going through the gates, meandering corridors, taking off our shoes for gate checks, etc. It is a challenging context to do a guerilla interview as people are stressed; they do not want to talk to a stranger.

Basic research

+ Looking into the architectural AUTOCAD files to plan on the ways we are going to draw the map. We learned that there are many technicalities when it comes to real-life structural maps vs. data for Unity.
+ Analyzing the thorough benchmark of airport apps provided by the client and their in-house test report.
+ We did our own side research to look into the indoor maps of malls.

Framing the design direction

We approached the map design from visual semiotics*. We hypothesize that it takes more time to get a sense of location out of ADP's existing Kiosk's 3D plan. We advise the design to be a clean isometric shape map.

Reference design

The style we have proposed remains as a "reference." It is complicated to render isometric 3D with "flat lighting" on Unity. The different POI object states clarification was welcomed since the existing one lacked such nuance.

Online questionnaire

Our goal is to make sure that users would understand the following point in our map design: Understanding the first direction to take. Understanding which level is the departure.

Method

Online questionnaire. France, China, and the USA. Age 35 ~ 50-year-old. 50|50 Man and Woman. Twenty questions to qualify the respondent and test some of the map design. Users look at the screen for 10 seconds and answered questions on the navigation to the point of interest.

Team

Design Lead Akemi
Senior Visual Designer
User Researcher
Project director In-Tact

Tasks

+ Proposing what needs to be done, estimating the time-budget.
+ Vision Workshops preparation (method, materials, synthesis)
+ Key use cases, hand sketching key interaction elements and flows to the designer
+ Collaborating with user researcher on the questionnaire
+ Guiding the prioritization workshop from a design standpoint of view
+ Creating the base for reference and concept documentation

Selected Works