The Context
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, travelling abroad meant endless queues at the border and multiple paperwork checkpoints. To tackle that problem and speed up border controls, the trade association of airlines IATA decided to develop a digital travel pass app for passengers to securely store their health and passport details and share with the relevant governments/airlines.
In December 2020 this project became my first at AND Digital. I was brought in as the sole UX/UI designer for this critical travel product to create a simple and appealing app in Android and iOS for travellers to use across the globe.
Main Focus of work
Multiple dev teams delivering multiple pieces of work in parallel coupled with constant client input and time pressure meant that we had to make sure every stakeholder was aligned on designs and user flows in flight.
Therefore, the main part of my work was to ensure every member of the team knew what was agreed and signed off by the client and what was coming to better plan ahead. To meet this need,I created a single source of truth Figma document with every main screen clearly displayed and listed on one page.
All of the most up to date screens were listed on the ‘Primary design page’.
I then turned all of these screens into components which would automatically update every design and user flow to make sure everything was always up to date.
User flow being automatically updated with the latest screens.
Finally, to make sure Android and iOS teams wouldn’t mix up their most up to date designs, I created two visually different instances of the same flows for each OS when necessary.
At the top, an example of a user flow for iOS. At the bottom its Android counterpart.
Additional challenges and solutions
IATA is a very old institution founded in 1945. Despite their stated desire to “work agile”, the company had a very classic Waterfall structure and showed little interest to properly educate themselves on the Agile framework.
>>> To tackle this issue, the Product Delivery Managers and myself organised several Agile 101 sessions and workshops for the client which improved our ways of working over time
The client was under a tremendous amount of pressure to deliver fast due to the urgency and the loss of revenue at stake which meant they would regularly present solutions instead of an actual brief.
>>> We made constant efforts to explain why the team didn’t feel comfortable with their solution and share better suited solutions based on the team’s understanding and knowledge.
The client wouldn’t financially invest in any type of research as they saw research as something that would slow things down.
>>> We constantly tested designs within the team to ensure that minimum user testing was part of our development process
Pushing Boundaries
Towards the end of the project, I initiated a client meeting/workshop to present what the design team envisioned the app could become in the future.
The new app vision was for passengers to have all their travel documents (passport/identity/health/travel) in one place to travel hassle free in a post-covid world.
Main Features
Digitise your identity
Find all your health credentials in one place
Add my flight, see its status and understand if I meet the travel requirements
Enable institutions (countries, airlines, airports, venues, workplaces...) to track my vaccination and testing history in a secure and verifiable way to better prevent the spread of diseases
Core values
Timeliness: I can share the right information at the right time
Build trust: I have full control of my data and know how my data is collected, shared and stored
The “Wow effect”: I find the app personal and exciting
Below is an overview of the screens we presented to illustrate what the app could become
Key screens of the improved app presented to the client
Some feedback from client and team members
“Victor understands the business well and what the customer wants to achieve. He drives the team of UI designers flawlessly and the proposals are often unanimously appreciated.
Working with him is pleasant, he is both professional and friendly.”
“Victor’s work is of high quality and considers technical limitations and client expectations, he consistently looks for ways to improve his design process and takes care to share information with the team”
“Victor’s proactiveness to reach out to myself and the development team before approaching the client has undoubtedly saved hours of meeting time with the client and Victor is able to confidently explain his proposed solution with the full backing of the team’s technical knowledge. ”