Finavia experience

Finavia experience

Finavia-experience-hero

During my one year working with Finavia, we built the foundation of Helsinki Airport’s omnichannel digital experience of commercial and non-commercial services. Our focus was on creating a scalable information architecture to assist travellers in finding airport services across various channels.

My contribution

  • User experience of Helsinki Airport commercial and non-commercial services in digital channels
  • Leading redesign of Service Info Screens at Helsinki Airport
  • Redesign of Helsinki Airport guide
  • User research, user testing and prototyping
  • User experience flows and high-fidelity UI
  • Collaboration with project management, development and service design

Background

Finavia is dedicated to maintaining Helsinki Airport's position as a leading gateway between East & West by providing passengers with innovative services and a smooth travel experience.

Over the years Finavia has strongly built their digital presence, including a comprehensive website with multiple services, a map, info screens, an app, and an online guide at the airport. Although, channels were disconnected from each other in many instances leading to a fragmented digital customer experience and painful maintaining job for content creators.

Finavia-experience-context

Our approach

When reshaping Helsinki Airport’s digital commercial and non-commercial services presence, we wanted to elevate the user experience from different fronts. Our aim was to connect Finavia’s various digital channels to keep a consistent customer expererience, while centralizing content creation to facilitate maintenance.

Within this project we aimed to support scenarios such as:

  • A traveller that uses finavia.fi prior her trip to see what services are available at the airport. For example, to find lounge options and book one.
  • A traveller who uses the airport interactive map screens (Service Info Screens) to see and compare what restaurants are available close by her gate, and decide if going right away or staying in another area.
  • A traveller who lost an item at the airport premises and uses the Helsinki Airport Guide (online portal when at the airport) to find Lost & Found contact details.

finavia-diagram

Process

We mapped out and clustered services at the airport. We identified what information was crucial for travellers when looking for services such as Lost & Found or Tax refund, compared to finding a suitable restaurant or shop at the airport.

To succeed, we centralized and optimized the use of categories and tags to (1) make sure travellers find relevant and updated information in all Finavia channels, and to (2) facilitate the role of content creators when updating changes in just one place.

Finavia Services

We launched the new designs on the website to learn and iterate, and followed-up while expanding into two other channels: Helsinki Airport Guide (online portal when at the airport) and interactive map screens (Service Info Screens).

Finavia Services Channels

Scaling up across Helsinki Airport Guide

Helsinki Airport Guide is a compact version of finavia.fi to serve travellers when at the airport. We mapped crucial traveller’s needs under the airport context to roll-out a simple, yet highly useful service when connecting to the airport free wi-fi. Travellers can find and follow flights, see transportation options and schedules to and from the airport, find and browse commercial and non-commercial services and get help and assistance.

The renewal of Helsinki Airport Guide uses the same foundation and building blocks as finavia.fi. We reused the same information architecture and design system components to keep the experience consistent and robust. On the other hand, when content creators make updates on services content they are reflected in all channels, including the Helsinki Airport Guide.

Finavia airport guide desktop
Finavia airport guide mobile

Service Info Screens

Service Info Screens are home to Helsinki Airport’s interactive airport map. In this project, we had an extensive user research phase to understand the needs of travellers when browsing the map in big touch screens. We learnt from the existing designs and decided to rebuild the menu and services listings to match finavia.fi information architecture. Travellers now can browse services by simultaneously navigating the map and listings.

Finavia SIS screen

Part of the redesign meant to translate UX patterns we use in the website to the map. We created a menu navigation and structure based on stackable layers that follow the same categories as the website. We carefully introduced motion design to support interactions from one level to another, while simulating the stack of layers.

Awards

Finavia experience has been awarded with:

  • Interaction awards – People’s Choice Award – 2018
  • The lovie awards – Best User Experience and People’s Choice Award – 2019
  • The webby awards – Best Visual Design & Function Honoree – 2019


About Finavia

Finnish airport operator Finavia enables smooth international flight connections through its national airport network. The biggest, Helsinki International Airport, served a total on 18.9 million passengers in 2017. Finavia offers world-class services to passengers, air traffic operators and commercial partners.