BA Inflight Entertainment System

The Inflight Entertainment System for BA’s global fleet.

British Airways IFE home screen

Project summary

The client

British Airways is the UK's flagship airline, renowned for its global network and premium services.

What I did

As the creative and UX lead, I oversaw the project to create a new in-flight entertainment system for British Airways. I facilitated the UX research and design while working closely with the British Airways and Thales technology teams. Thirteen years after it was first installed, the system, which was intended to be in operation for ten years, is still entertaining passengers on BA's fleet of long-haul aircraft.

Key results

  • 13 years in service
  • Over 2 million passengers served
services
Interface design
UX Design
Information architecture
Role

Lead Designer & Design Manager

Duration

12 months

Project milestone #1

Interface design

Design of the system involved multiple unique challenges. Each screen had its own CPU to run the software and due to overheating issues, performance of the system was significantly impaired. This meant designing basic interactions without animations and developing applications that required minimal CPU effort.

A navigation system using a combination of iconography and tabs was devised. This not only reduced screen real estate but also the amount of text that needed to be translated.
The system was designed for the low light environment inside the cabin. This reduced brightness not only made using the system more comfortable to use but also reduced light pollution for neighbouring passengers.
A library of custom icons was designed for the navigation
A distinct 'Skyflyers' brand was developed for the kids area of the system. This was to help reassure parents that their children's screens had the appropriate parental locks applied.

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Testimonial

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Redesigning default apps

The entertainment system was designed to run on a pre-existing platform with incumbent applications. But we soon discovered these apps were built by engineers without much consideration for usability. Rather that simply reskin these them, we undertook a separate project to redesign each app.

These ranged from the video player used to watch each movie, to the flight map and seat-to-seat chat. Researching best practice and re-engineering the functionality resulted in a remarkable improvement in usability. The improved apps went on to be used in other airlines IFEs built by Thales.

Project milestone #2

Information architecture

Many different structures of information architecture were explored early on in the project to ensure new users knew intuitively how to navigate the system. Detailed wireframes and documentation was provided to the third-party development team to ensure the information architecture was implemented at the highest level.

Hundreds of pages of wireframes were thoroughly annotated to provided detailed specifications to the development team. I worked closely with the engineers to implement designs and make trade-off where necessary without compromising the user experience.
Every detail in the information architecture was considered. Meticulous instructions were provided for the Personal Control Unit (PCU) for every screen template. This was crucial so that passengers using the hand controllers had consistent navigation on every screen.
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Project milestone #3
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Results

13 years in service

Over 2 million passengers served