Product Experience Journal -Seat Controller (01/07/23)
As the first article of “Product Experience Journal”, I will hash out my experience of Air Plane Seat Controller.
Preface
December 12th 2022, for the first time in my life, I booked a first class ticket. I was super thrilled about first class which I had dreamed of and only experienced virtually watching v-logs of creators (I’m a huge fan of ‘Sam Chui’).
I had been longing to experience ‘flat seating’ up in the air for such a long time but unfortunately, I couldn’t make it easily and couldn’t help calling a flight attendant to turn my lounge seating into a day bed. This is where this experience journal begins.
Product Experience Problems
The major problems I found from this user interface can be summarized by three.
(1) Misleading Visual Cues
(2) Feature Blobs
(3) Lack of Clarity
Let’s dive into each.
(1) Misleading Visual Cues
Considering the size of real estate of feature groups, the primary action intended is changing the angles of head rest, back support and the foot rest. ( I would say it’s not just primary actions, rather it’s all)
While the controls of the three parts (head,back and foot) seem quite easy to understand, the other parts don’t seem straightforward enough. I think it’s mainly because of confusing visual cues.
When I see the button (Fig 2), I thought it’s a telephone button I can use as I saw in films. I connected my headphone in my seat and pushed the button. Of course nothing happened. I pushed the button left and right. Then I realized it’s a button for adjusting the head rest. I could assume why it has ‘telephone’ shape right away by seeing the same symbol at the top left corner. It tried to keep visual semiotics so used the same symbol in another location of the controller panel. It should use a different symbol to avoid the confusion or just not have it.
(2) Feature Blobs (Redundancy)
The telephone creates another problem as I hinted above. There is already buttons to adjust the head rest. I don’t see the necessity of having the ‘head rest only’ on the side. I strongly believe it shouldn’t waste the interface real estate in this way just to remove the empty space.
The redundancy not only causes confusion and also generates cognitive overload. It took me more time to process the interface and as you must have already experienced from many existing controllers, the more buttons you have the more overwhelming is the interface.
(3) Lack of Clarity
The last part is a clarity issue.
I found these useful. I love the quick set up option. But what I didn’t like was how it communicates the information with users. I understand that it’s not a best choice to put labels at the top like ‘quick set up’.
First, it’s because that it’s ‘Korean Air’ so the designer couldn’t assure that the label would communicate well with non-English speakers.
Second, more importantly, the environment of the airplane is half of time bright and the rest of the half dark. After taking off, the interior lights are turned off and passengers can only turn their reading lights on individually.
Nevertheless, I still don’t think the visual language the controller took was the best bet. Particularly because of the second one, fork and knife. It confuses me in the same way as the wrong ‘telephone’ button does. I misunderstood it as ‘requesting meal’ or ‘requesting snack’, while what it means is ‘recommended set up for eating’. Once I hit the button, my seat was adjusted to a certain form which they believe ideal for eating.
Product Design Proposals
If I stopped here without proposing my own solutions, it would end up a mere complaining. I would have this chapter to share how I believe the experience could be improved to solve the problems I encountered.
(1) Solving misleading visual cues
I will remove one of the two head rest adjustment button, the one on the side panel. Creating a new visual language would cause another misconception so I believe it’s better not to have the button. (If I use a different icon, user might misunderstand the function the new button does is a different one)
Then what about the empty space? I will put light controller which is placed within the TV controller.
I had a hard time to locate the controller where I could turn on and off light after leaned backward to read a book. I needed to open the other side of the seat and grab the TV controller and turned the light on.
(2) Feature Blobs
By removing the head rest button and replacing it with the light switch, the feature blobs (redundancy) issue is automatically cleared.
(3) Lack of Clarity
While I don’t disagree that the quick set ups — straight, for eating and for sleeping- is a good approach, I still see the options confusing. In addition, the “ideal” set up seems bit arbitrary. I would rather make it more explicit by showing the shape of each option. See below for a quick sketch design.
Grabbing all the proposals, the final model is going to look like the below.
Epilogue
I was highly excited when the idea about creating this product experience journal. My initial thought was to keep things simple so I could easily continue this journal series. Unfortunately, I found this requires way more time and effort than I first expected. But it feels rewarding and I hope I could keep this perseverance.
Check out the next episode if you found this post compelling.
For the next series, I’m going to talk about home heating thermostat.
