Discovery

We started by interviewing the project stakeholders as well as some of the target users in order to get a better idea about the pain points they were facing and why the application was being created.

In the analog process, FTEs had to go onto an application and print out the information they needed for a flight. We observed the preflight planning process and a flight brief in order to better understand how the information was being used. 

One of the major features being requested was a robust search, but due to the large level of effort, we wanted to find out if the FTEs could find the item they were looking for based only on the discipline and title. We performed a tree test using Optimal Workshop. The results led us to start with a design based on title, but where all content can potentially be a result, no matter which category it might fall into.

Another problem we ran into was that there was a lot of data fields that needed to be displayed, but we didn't know which were the most important. We asked the FTEs to rank each field in order of importance using a SurveyGizmo module. The results gave us an aggregate view of the relative importance of each field, which guided the design for the details screen

Ideation & Initial Design

As a way of getting the entire Scrum team involved with the design, I facilitated a group sketching session. We started with the list of major features for the app and everyone individually sketched out what they were envisioning. Then we went around the room explaining our ideas. I took everyone's sketches and the initial design for the app was an aggregate of the best ideas from this session.

At the same session, we discussed the different types of mobile application navigation. I wanted everyone to think about why certain ones might work better or worse specifically for the FTEs. We ended up with a list of pros and cons for each type of navigation.

After creating a series of sketches, I created digital wireframes and a click-through prototype in Balsamiq. Having these helped give us a visual aid to take back to the business and explain our thought process behind he designs and to ensure that we were heading in the right direction.

Paper Prototype Testing

In order to gather feedback on the initial design, we showed a paper mock-up of the main list screen to several Flight Test Engineers. We wanted to know if they understood the base navigation and if they intuitively knew what they could interact with on that screen. We asked them various questions about the amount of information on screen, their expectations of interactions and behavior, and overall impressions.

Design Iteration

From the paper prototype testing, we learned that the engineers needed the Log Number on the main list in order to identify items to one another and find them more easily. After finding out that the Log Number was actually the identifier, we also changed the sort order of the list to be numerically by Log rather than alphabetically by Title. We also decided to spell out the discipline names, rather than using acronyms because less experienced FTEs did not know what they all stood for.

Usability Testing

We performed two rounds of usability testing in addition to the initial paper prototype test. Each time, we made minor adjustments to improve areas of confusion. For example, users were attempting to tap on an icon that did not do anything, so we changed the design of the icon to help make it less salient.