Aircraft cabin interior design, seat design, aircraft galleys, colour, trim and finish for all classes, IFE
integration and helping airlines including British Airways, Etihad Airways, Jet2.com, Singapore Airlines and Virgin
Atlantic to improve the passenger experience of travelling on their aircraft and communicating their brand
proposition in three dimensions.
Passenger experience design …
The search for innovation : start with the experience not the product.
A friend of mine is very rich and yet he is wasting his money because it sits in a bank. I’ll tell you
what I mean, but first a quick observation. Life could be described as a series of experiences all strung
together. Surely we all aim to make each of these experiences as pleasant and enjoyable as possible with the
end result being that our lives are, simply, as good as we can make them given the means at our disposal.
Let’s be honest, given the choice, we would all rather drive a Audi than a Ford, tell the time with a Rolex not
a Timex, drink Champagne not Pomagne, wear Paul Smith, not Primark and never have to travel ‘low cost’ … I could go
on. This is not a matter of brand puffing (for most anyway), it is simply that the first of each of these is
better than the second. And by better, I mean quality and design. The meaning of the word quality has
become almost as exhausted as the word design, both so over used and abused by everyone from plumber to celebrity,
that the significance of what they really mean has become lost.
Those who can, choose Audi, Rolex and avoid Ryanair, not because they are making some social brand statement but
because their experience, their life, is more enjoyable as a result of the use and interaction (or avoidance) with
these products. And that is why my friend is wasting his money because it sits in a bank. He may have
assets, but each day his life is poorer as a consequence of not making each experience as good as it can possibly
be.
Now if we apply that approach to an airline’s offer - I mean everything from choosing which airline and booking
a flight to the cabin experience and in-flight service – then surely the place to start with any new product is to
consider the passenger experience. I am confident, for example, that Audi do not sit down at the beginning of
a product programme and say, “right, we’ve got a seat now shall we design the cabin, then we’ll work on the IFE,
oh, and let’s not forget the car body…” no, quite, they embrace the whole experience.
It’s a subtle one, I grant you, but stay with me. It is easy to grab at the physical, to see, touch and
understand a seat or a lavatory or bathroom, and consequently it is an obvious place to start a programme.
However, next time, have a think about starting with the passenger experience and working towards the products,
rather than the other way around.
Homage to aircraft cabin design mock-ups.
And on the subject of experiences, last week I had a virtual meeting. Yes, I know, they used to be called
a video conference, but now they are virtual meetings… and it was virtually useless.
Once a project is up and running, or when you already know the person you need to meet, I admit, there is value
in picking up the phone or the digital camera and having a chat. But if you are trying to make an
introduction or discuss a tricky matter, there is nothing quite the same as shaking someone’s hand, getting around
a table and pointing at stuff… with a real finger, not a digital one.
In much the same way, in the process of new product development, you cannot beat design mock-ups to fully assess
the physical and emotional experience. Photo-real renderings and illustrations are an expected minimum
standard these days in the presentation of new concepts. The technology is getting better all the time and
some examples are exceptional. While it is not always feasible with some budgets to achieve Pixar levels of
communication, it is still possible with a fairly modest investment to produce very real virtual images of future
concepts. Virtual reality programs enable the viewer to navigate their way through a digital world and
experience spaces and products that don’t exist, albeit with silly glasses on. And I promise you, we can play
smoke and mirrors with computers and people that will leave you thinking you are looking at a real cabin or seat or
product. But even the very best computer wizardry will be viewed on paper or on screen and these are
two-dimensional interfaces.
Our world is three-dimensional, and so are we. In fact if you add emotion, we are almost four-dimensional
and you can’t get that from a visualisation. Perhaps it is something to do with our stereo vision or the
sense that alerts us to the existence of someone in the room before we see or hear them, whatever the reason, we
engage and interact with design mock-ups in a completely different way than we do with a picture. And that
interaction will be a more accurate experience of the eventual product.
Design mock-ups come in all shapes and sizes, some to scale, some full-size, often made of cardboard or wood or
the sinisterly named chemical wood. Different techniques are appropriate at different points in a design
program and address different issues, such as size, touch, form, space, function, comfort, ease of use, and so
on. They can be held together with string or built with the appearance of the final product, so much so that
some will wonder why they do not work. And some will work.
With projects budgets being squeezed and with all this technology about, there must be a strong temptation to
skimp on mock-ups. They are not always cheap and the more sophisticated variety cannot be made overnight, but
as an aid to getting the most from a space or seat, or as a reassurance that your new lavatory is not fit only for
dwarves or giants, they are priceless.
So dig deep, focus on the passenger experience and three cheers for aircraft cabin design mock-ups. Thanks
for reading.
www.factorydesign.co.uk
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