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Air NZ Inflight Entertainment


The Air NZ IFE was being re-platformed to the Android operating system and I led the visual design of the project, working closely with the crew from Purple Shirt who championed the interaction design.


Role
Responsibilities

Design Lead
Conceptual design
Systems design
UI design
Art direction
Animation




The opportunity

While the previous version was well-loved by customers, the experience as a whole was in need of a more modern and engaging interface, in keeping with where Air NZ was moving to from a brand perspective. 

The approach

Central to the design of this experience were two key, overarching principles:

1. Reflecting the unique experience of consuming media while flying through the sky.

2. Creating a soothing and calming interface to help customers relax. 

Multiple visual treatments based on the principle of ‘Perspectives only seen from the air’ were explored with the team in order to create the right tone. ‘Amorphous lightblooms’, or the slow, shifting light forms reminiscent of sunrises and sunsets seen out of an aircraft window was where we landed, and this visual motif became central to our treatment of the entire experience, from the soothing pinks and purples of the Welcome screen through to the soft background treatments and transitions in and out of key sections, as well as the hero imagery and weather animations. 





Working closely with the development partner in Los Angeles, this experience was robustly tested over the course of many months, both from a usability perspective as well as it’s performance. Huge banks of devices were set up to simulate an entire aircraft of IFEs running simultaneously in order to ensure the the experience we were designing could run and behave as we had envisaged.




At the same time, the Air NZ Design System ​(Unison) was in its infancy. This project helped to define the early stages of this system from an experience and visual perspective, particularly around the definition of how a darker themed, and more media rich interface could look and behave.


The outcome

This latest version of the IFE is now successfully flying on longhaul, Tasman and Pacific routes.

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