Passenger In-Flight Wi-Fi Usage

Written By Oliveee Liu

UX Research Intern @Viasat

05/2023 - 12/2023

Background

In my work on the in-flight Wi-Fi portal products for commercial aviation, I aim to enhance our product strategy and user experience by gaining insights into passengers' behavioral patterns and attitudinal preferences regarding in-flight Wi-Fi usage.

Research Impact

Developed a research-driven pricing strategy that aligns business goals with user mental models and behaviors.

Goals and Objectives

Behavioral: To gain an accurate view of what passengers do during flights, how they use their personal devices, and how connectivity plays a role.

Attitudinal: To explore users’ needs, fears, motivations, and problems regarding in-flight Wi-Fi.

Methods & Processes

01 User Interviews

Target participants

  • 12 participants

  • Our target users are those who fly recently and frequently, use personal electronic devices during most of their flights, and have purchased in-flight Wi-Fi before.

  • We included a screening survey to recruit our target participants (see below).

Key Insights

From user interview results, we realized there are 2 In-flight Wi-Fi User Groups:

  • Work Use Passengers

  • Personal Use Passengers

Specifically, work-use passengers treat their flight as an extension of their workplace.

“Frequently I fly with the intention to create a presentation that I would be sharing upon arrival. So having the three to four hours of productive work time is really important to me.”

— A Work Use Passenger

Business Opportunities

Develop higher Wi-Fi tiers tailored to work-use passengers, with supporting evidence from business and technical perspectives.

02 User Personas

User Personas are developed from the synthesized user interview results.

They aim to help design and product teams better understand their end users and design features tailored to user groups varied by mental models and needs.

03 User Surveys

User surveys aim to validate the qualitative user personas from a quantitative perspective. Descriptive analysis quantifies the pattern of user behaviors and attitudes.

04 Conclusion & Recommendations

05 Internship Reflections

Key Takeaways:

  • Cross-functional Collaboration: when doing research, also consider design, business, and technical perspectives to make research more implementable.

  • Make Research Impact: Be proactive about research to make impact to different stakeholders. Speaking out research findings with different types of supporting evidence is crucial.

Oliveee Liu
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