Emirates F&B App — optimizing the in-flight workflows for the crew
Role: User Research, Ethnographic Studies, Usability Test, User Interviews, User Journeys, User Flows, UX/UI Recommendations.Background:During my time at Emirates, I fell in love with a product. Between my international flight duties and my Product Design involvement, I found myself in the perfect spot to make some product discovery. Taking the role of ultimate user advocate, I led a round of usability testing, paired with ethnographic studies and user feedback sessions to dig deep into the cabin crew workflows and understand their relationship with the Emirates F&B App. I used the insights from this discovery to propose UX/UI enhancements to the App to reduce error rates and improve Cabin Crew’s efficiency on Emirates Business Class flights.It is my intention to protect sensitive and proprietary information disclosed to me by Emirates during the course of this work. Passenger names and flight details on the app screenshots are fictitious.01
The Context
The Emirates F&B App is the tool used by the Emirates Cabin Crew on board Emirates flights, in Business Class, to manage processes related to service delivery during the flight, such as taking passengers' food & beverage orders, managing meal inventory and delivering personalized service.
42–76
Business Class passengers per flight
12,700
Emirates passengers in Business Class daily, on average
21
Business Class passengers served by one crew member on a flight
F&B App: reducing the distance between Airplane and HQ
The importance of the F&B app falls under Service Delivery success, a critical component of Emirates' business strategy. The app sets out to enhance customer onboard experience, by:• Allowing the cabin crew to provide a more efficient service
• Enabling personalization of service and high attention to detail
• Feeding relevant information to Flight Catering teams
(and others)Zooming out, this is where the F&B App lives:
02
The Challenge
How might we make it easier for the cabin crew to deliver an excellent performance?
03
Discovery
What should I find out?
The cabin crew role is high-paced, dynamic, and demanding, with numerous complexities.
To start, I want to move away from all assumptions. In an effort to have a really well-rounded understanding of life at 40,000 ft, this discovery journey included a mix of methods involving many people:Starting with ethnographic studies which included passive observation and contextual interviews, we begin to take note of the intricacies of the cabin crew work environment and challenges that they face during in-flight service. This was complemented by JTBD analysis, which really helped frame the research within the context of the specific jobs and tasks cabin crew are trying to accomplish during a flight. Feedback sessions became our space for candid user inputs and emphasized a user-centered design approach. Usability testing served as the final checkpoint, to understand how the F&B app integrates into the cabin crew's high-paced workflow.
More specifically…
For context, here's the outline of the app functionalities categorized into 4 broad buckets. In this Case Study, we'll zoom in on Order Prepping. This is because, as the first part of broad discovery rolled out, we began to look at potential for improvement on this.Anticipating
• Select flight
• Access flight info
• View pax info
• Update meal inventoryWelcoming
• View seat map
• View pax details
• Discover empty seatsOrder Taking
• View pax preference
• View menu items
• Select menu options
• Add notes
• Check meal inventoryOrder Prepping
• View order list
• Clear order from listFinding out
I obtained User Feedback from 20 users overall, through in-person interviews and written surveys. These conversations gave the users an active role in describing their relationship with the app, emphasizing a user-centered design approach. Some of the questions I asked:• Could you describe your experience using the app to organize service delivery?• How would you rate the app's overall user-friendliness and ease of use?• How did the app impact your workload and overall experience during service delivery?• What, in your experience, contributes to a smooth and enjoyable in-flight service?• Were there any specific features or functionalities in the app that stood out as particularly helpful in managing in-flight service?• Are there specific features or functionalities that you feel are missing from the app but would be useful to your work?How usable is the app?
Usability Testing on 11 users served as the final checkpoint to understand how the F&B app integrates into the users' high-paced workflow. I ran the test with volunteer users on-board 12 flights on A380 and B777 aircrafts, in real-life service delivery situations, whenever their flight duty permitted. I followed up with user feedback sessions. Participants had varying degrees of experience in Business Class service and in utilizing the app. Directed by the previous research, the usability test focused on the usability of the app during Order Prepping. Tracked metrics included Time on Task, Error Rate, Nav Path, and Effort Score.
JTBD analysis was a great way to dig into the specific jobs and tasks cabin crew are trying to accomplish during a flight. Doing this exercise uncovered underlying motivations and allowed discovery of user needs directly linked to the core responsibilities of cabin crew, which are not obviously reflected on the F&B app.What do they say?
In Ethnographic Research, I observed 66 cabin crew at the job, on-board 12 flights on A380 and B777 aircrafts, in real-life, high-focus, service delivery situations. A mix of passive observation and contextual questions allowed me to document information grounded in the real-world context of our users. Some of the things I observed: • What’s their typical workflow for meal order prepping?• What are their key priorities during in-flight service? • How is everything organized and stored in the physical workspace?• How do they use the device in the physical workspace?• How do they adapt to unexpected changes/delays in in-flight service?• What is the level of stress/workload they experience in-flight?• Which aspects in the current process are pain points, and which are enjoyable/rewarding?What are their tasks?
How do they work?
Drawing from discovery, we did a JTBD exercise to uncover underlying motivations inside each task and discover user needs directly linked to the core responsibilities of the cabin crew, which are not obviously reflected on the F&B app. Here's one example:
04
Insights
Jobs To Be Done:
capturing user needs
Insights
The Galley Flow:
where the magic happens
One main discovery that happened at the intersection of ethnographic research with JTBD analysis is what I call the Galley Flow. The Galley Flow hadn't officially been outlined anywhere, but it's exactly where some friction occurs between the users and the app.The Galley is the “airplane kitchen”. During in-flight service, the cabin crew reach this workflow when they have taken the passengers' orders and they are now in the Galley preparing and delivering meals. It's also important to know that this single flow is repeated up to 21 times (one for each passenger) by the same user, for each step of the service delivery sequence!The Galley Flow consists of 4 tasks – and two of them happen outside of the App. Why is this important? Because, by carefully observing the users complete each of the tasks in this flow, I was able to extract a couple interesting insights. 
Insights
If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going
Seems like a tiny detail, but on some Boeing 777 flights, the aircraft Business Class configuration means that service is conducted in a particular order: in the first portion of the cabin, it's done from row 6 to row 7; but in the second portion of the cabin, it's done backwards from row 11 to row 8. But the F&B app does not reflect this sequence, and users are required to continuously scroll down to find the information they need, for every cycle of the Galley Flow after row 7.
Insights
The dance of card clearing
Usability test revealed an error rate of 23% on "clearing order from list", where users inadvertently clear an extra card from the card list. From observation, it seems that upon performing "clear order from list", users sometimes perceive that the action did not occur and perform the same action again. But on continuous use along many cycles of the same flow, the same user becomes used to the app and error becomes less frequent.
Lots of names
From User Feedback, we learnt 40% users find the order cards "confusing", because the cabin crew name is displayed at the top of each order card, near the passenger name, and occasionally in uppercase characters. Information hierarchy within each card is unclear, and it leads to mistakes such as the cabin crew utilizing the wrong name to address a passenger.
05
Recommendations
Match real-life flows
In the Galley Page, reorganizing the displayed Order Card sequence better reflects the real-life workflow. By displaying the right information at the right time, interaction with the app is optimized, because we reduce the amount of scrolling up and down, shortening the navigation path the user takes to complete tasks. The intention is to reduce cognitive load on the user, thus reducing the possibility for human error. 
Recommendations
Attention to detail:
it goes both ways
Visual Hierarchy
Better information hierarchy is established in the Order Card itself, by placing customer name and meal order at the same level of hierarchical importance, and leaving other order information (time stamp and cabin crew name) at the bottom, thus eliminating confusion. Microinteraction
Upon clearing order card, subtle animation of Order Card effectively communicates system status change and provides clarity to prevent user errors.
06
Validate
Prototype Testing + User Feedback Sessions
10 volunteer users completed a round of online and in person prototype testing, where I measured metrics like Time on Task and Error Rate for the tasks identified in the Galley Flow. Each was followed by user feedback session, where I assessed user contentment with usability and overall app experience after enhancements.😬 Constraints:
Prototype testing outside of the aircraft environment cannot capture all the intricacies of real-life in-flight scenarios, making it very challenging to replicate the full user experience. Real-life scenarios can be unpredictable, with factors such as turbulence, passenger emergencies, miscommunication, and other events, and replicating these variables in testing is extremely difficult.Here, feedback sessions helped create a more comprehensive understanding of the interviewed users' perception of ease of use.07
Impact
Ready for test flight!
My work on the F&B App ended by the end of Q2 2023, soon after launch of app v1. The launch of v2 is predicted in the upcoming months, which will be an opportunity to re-measure and iterate. My main goal with this project was to make significant discovery work and improve Emirates' analytical capability regarding the usability of the F&B app. I did encounter constraints when testing a prototype that included my UX/UI recommendations, but for now, these are the results I estimated to deliver with my documentation:15%
Faster task completion time for "deciding which order to prepare next", as estimated during prototype testing.44%
Reduced error rate for "clearing order from list", as estimated during prototype testing.easier
Users interviewed perceived the app
to be more helpful.Takeaways
Empathizing with users and digging deep into their workflows and needs was key. Observing user frustrations gave me a clue into where things could be better: this was confirmed with quantitative data, like error rates.Interviews and usability test were valuable methods, since I had access to users in real-life flight scenarios. But not always can users identify what they need, so passive observation in ethnographic research was super important to obtain qualitative data. I observed off-app behavior, like placement of device on galley surfaces, multitasking, high-focus, two-handed tasks. This suggested the need for relevant info to be readily displayed to users with minor interaction required.I did encounter constraints when conducting research, and again especially when testing my prototype. Nevertheless, I set out to improve Emirates' analytical capability regarding the usability of the F&B app, and move the discovery forward.In the context of Emirates Service Delivery, we think about high-performance. Small tweaks to processes can make something that is already great, even better.