KLM Appy2Improve App
KLM Appy2Improve App
Project overview
KLM is one of the most important airlines in the world as it helps more than 2 million passengers to get to their destinations every day. The company presented to several student and interns teams a design challenge involving the main stakeholders of the turnaround process: Ground Services employees and managers. KLM required to motivate employees from Ground Services to engage in and adopt the continuous improvements of apps and processes developed by the company.
My Role
Team Leader & Main Researcher
Tools
Qualtrics: For generating quantitative user research insights through surveys.
Otter.ai: For transcribing and analyzing qualitative user research from interviews.
Adobe CC: For visualization and reporting of insights.
Sketch: For UI design and prototyping.
Duration
August 2018 - February 2019
Project overview
KLM is one of the most important airlines in the world as it helps more than 2 million passengers to get to their destinations every day. The company presented to several student and interns teams a design challenge involving the main stakeholders of the turnaround process: Ground Services employees and managers. KLM required to motivate employees from Ground Services to engage in and adopt the continuous improvements of apps and processes developed by the company.
My Role
Team Leader & Main Researcher
Tools
Qualtrics: For generating quantitative user research insights through surveys.
Otter.ai: For transcribing and analyzing qualitative user research from interviews.
Adobe CC: For visualization and reporting of insights.
Sketch: For UI design and prototyping.
Duration
August 2018 - February 2019
Preliminary research and project vision
The project began with a quick 6 weeks preliminary user research where I discovered that employees did not trust the apps that the company provided, felt were not involved in development feedback and also not trained enough. Consequently, the team generated a vision based on the user research findings:
Preliminary research and project vision
The project began with a quick 6 weeks preliminary user research where I discovered that employees did not trust the apps that the company provided, felt were not involved in development feedback and also not trained enough. Consequently, the team generated a vision based on the user research findings:
“We want Ground Services employees to actively contribute to the continuous improvement of applications and processes, creating intrinsic motivation for use and excitement about the benefits that evolving technology could bring to them.”
Agile design and development
The team followed an Agile process for the project as we decided to engage in continuous delivery cycles with employees and managers from KLM. We went through a series of two-week sprints in each of the research, design, and testing stages of the project.
User research plan
I conducted a total of 30 in-depth interviews with KLM employees where I asked them questions regarding co-creation, feedback and training in the company.
We also applied Card Sorting research methods with 21 KLM employees in order to find what is the ideal way of co-creation for both developers and employees. More specifically, a measurement regarding which form of co-creation are they comfortable with.
Participants:
10 Air-side employees from Ground Services
6 Land side agents from Ground Services
3 Team coordinators
2 Developers from KLM Digital Studio
Agile design and development
The team followed an Agile process for the project as we decided to engage in continuous delivery cycles with employees and managers from KLM. We went through a series of two-week sprints in each of the research, design, and testing stages of the project.
User research plan
I conducted a total of 30 in-depth interviews with KLM employees where I asked them questions regarding co-creation, feedback and training in the company.
We also applied Card Sorting research methods with 21 KLM employees in order to find what is the ideal way of co-creation for both developers and employees. More specifically, a measurement regarding which form of co-creation are they comfortable with.
Participants:
10 Air-side employees from Ground Services
6 Land side agents from Ground Services
3 Team coordinators
2 Developers from KLM Digital Studio
Identified Problems
Throughout the research stage identified several pain-points with Ground Services employees and inefficiencies in KLM digital design processes:
Complexity of IT landscape and infrastructure:
The different digital systems that KLM uses (e.g., iPad, desktop in airport, mobile) cause confusion in the employees, who also have limited time during their day to learn to use each one.
Difficulty to share feedback:
Ground Services employees do not have enough time to share their feedback around new digital features in the KLM App. Their work is too demanding and current feedback methods are tedious.
Not enough time for training & keeping up with changes:
Ground Services employees do not have enough time to get training or keep up with the improvements deployed by KLM Digital Studio. Most of the time, this causes problems with customers who want immediate support at the airport and Ground Services employees do not know how to help due to new updates in the App (e.g., change of some processes).
Despite all the identified problems, a key insight was that every stakeholder in the organization was looking for more efficient ways to do their job. As a result, this became the team's mantra while developing a UX solution.
Identified Problems
Throughout the research stage identified several pain-points with Ground Services employees and inefficiencies in KLM digital design processes:
Complexity of IT landscape and infrastructure:
The different digital systems that KLM uses (e.g., iPad, desktop in airport, mobile) cause confusion in the employees, who also have limited time during their day to learn to use each one.
Difficulty to share feedback:
Ground Services employees do not have enough time to share their feedback around new digital features in the KLM App. Their work is too demanding and current feedback methods are tedious.
Not enough time for training & keeping up with changes:
Ground Services employees do not have enough time to get training or keep up with the improvements deployed by KLM Digital Studio. Most of the time, this causes problems with customers who want immediate support at the airport and Ground Services employees do not know how to help due to new updates in the App (e.g., change of some processes).
Despite all the identified problems, a key insight was that every stakeholder in the organization was looking for more efficient ways to do their job. As a result, this became the team's mantra while developing a UX solution.
Solution: Appy2Improve
Appy2Improve is a feature within the iPad app from KLM that improves Ground Services processes by allowing employees to digitalize feedback, collaborate with the development team, and complete weekly challenges. The final concept aims to improve employee engagement from three key aspects: involvement, training, and feedback & support.
Solution: Appy2Improve
Appy2Improve is a feature within the iPad app from KLM that improves Ground Services processes by allowing employees to digitalize feedback, collaborate with the development team, and complete weekly challenges. The final concept aims to improve employee engagement from three key aspects: involvement, training, and feedback & support.
UX Design & Functionality
Splash Screen:
The splash screen is the first part of Appy2Improve. It appears once per day, when employees log in to their KLM appat the start of their shift. The splash screen will show either a short feedback question, an invitation to join a brainstorm session with the development team, or the weekly challenge. This splash screen is designed to create more employee involvement with the development team by offering a daily opportunity to give feedback and collaborate.
UX Design & Functionality
Splash Screen:
The splash screen is the first part of Appy2Improve. It appears once per day, when employees log in to their KLM appat the start of their shift. The splash screen will show either a short feedback question, an invitation to join a brainstorm session with the development team, or the weekly challenge. This splash screen is designed to create more employee involvement with the development team by offering a daily opportunity to give feedback and collaborate.
Focused Feedback:
Appy2Improve provides focussed feedback to developers, since they could post questions that are relevant to their current sprint using the principle of “one question survey” (see “Continuous Discovery Habits” by Teresa Torres).
Challenge of the Week:
To keep employees on track with the continuous improvements of the KLM application and ground services processes, we introduced a Challenge of the Week. This appears once a week and focuses on training. Instead of sending long explanations about new functionalities or procedures, employees now receive short challenges that can be completed in a few minutes.
User testing and validation
The iterative nature of our digital solution (a feature on the iPad app) allowed us to conduct several usability testing and UX bash (UX debugging) sessions with Ground Services employees. As a general insight, employees appreciated the new functionality as it helps them stay up to date with improvements to the KLM App.
As the most important result of the project, Appy2Improve promoted a habit of continuous improvement for KLM Ground Services employees.
User testing and validation
The iterative nature of our digital solution (a feature on the iPad app) allowed us to conduct several usability testing and UX bash (UX debugging) sessions with Ground Services employees. As a general insight, employees appreciated the new functionality as it helps them stay up to date with improvements to the KLM App.
As the most important result of the project, Appy2Improve promoted a habit of continuous improvement for KLM Ground Services employees.
User testing and validation
The iterative nature of our digital solution (a feature on the iPad app) allowed us to conduct several usability testing and UX bash (UX debugging) sessions with Ground Services employees. As a general insight, employees appreciated the new functionality as it helps them stay up to date with improvements to the KLM App.
As the most important result of the project, Appy2Improve promoted a habit of continuous improvement for KLM Ground Services employees.
