Aviation Enterprise meets Human Centered Design
We are in the midst of tremendous change and for a multitude of reasons. This can often invoke various feelings of anxiety, excitement, and overall angst. I have been reminded by our leaders here at Alaska of the words written by Heraclitus (a Greek philosopher) almost 2500 years ago:
Change is the only constant.
In traditional meditation practice, one shared category of experience is the reflection of impermanence or “transiency of all phenomena¹.” Nothing we perceive to have, own or observe is immune to this observed reality of constant change. Twenty twenty has notoriously made this clear to all of us.
How should we then respond as knowledge workers, thought leaders, and agents of change during times such as these?
Who we are at Alaska Airlines.
At Alaska Airlines it is our mission as designers, researchers, engineers, and product managers to:
- Create an airline people love.
Our raison d’êtra is to fly humans from one destination to another. We have the ultimate privilege of connecting communities all over the world. This is no easy task nor is it perfect by any means.
I can’t exaggerate how difficult this pandemic has been on the airline industry and air travel in general. We are in the midst of having to adapt to a new reality. In order to do this well, and accomplish our mission, we must rest on and emphasize Human Centered Design as our foundation moving forward.
Human Centered Design
For those unfamiliar with Human Centered Design (HCD), the three core tenants are: to (1) Understand; (2) Explore; and (3) Materialize².
This won’t come as a surprise to you, but we pride ourselves in being guest-focused. We approach our work from a place of empathy in order to understand guest pain points and the overall complexity of air travel. This now — is never more true than ever with our focus on Safety.
In order to understand the needs of our employees and our guests we have invested heavily in our design and research programs. This give us the ability to become uncomfortably familiar with the change and the challenges at-hand and ahead.
What does this contingent future of air travel look like? What do airports and lobbies look like in a post Covid-19 world? How do they work? How do we transport passengers effectively and safely? How do we keep our employees safe? How do we make air travel seamless and remove fear and anxiety from the equation? These are all problems we are continuously trying to understand and solve for.
Summary
Air travel was and will continue to be uniquely and extremely complex — even in this pandemic-stricken environment where change has increasingly become the only constant. We are excited to tackle these problems head on and want to share what we have learned and continue to learn. Our hope is that others may find our journey and our stories inspiring, insightful, and fun to read when you are stuck with a problem to solve or even just bored at home.
We hope to see you safely on the tarmac!
Ryan Wilson
Sr. Product Designer
¹ Goldstein, Joseph. Mindfulness: A practical guide to awakening. Sounds True, 2013,2016.
² Gibbons, Sarah. “Design thinking 101.” Nielsen Norman Group, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/design-thinking/. Accessed 1 Dec 2020.
Flag photo was taken by Ingrid Barrentine. 2020.
