I conducted research with private pilots of Honeywell’s Flight Bag Pro application that we had just launched into beta testing.  

The application enabled pilots to plan, view, update and file flight routes. The application also enabled the pilot to complete their preflight checks of weather, notices to airmen, NOTAM, and temporary flight restrictions, TFR that could necessitate changes to the route that was filed.

The lead UX designer, the product owner, lead flight support specialist, and I visited a customer site to review the new application with 11 pilots. I reviewed the profile of each of the pilots and split them into two groups distributing based on years of flying, years in corporate aviation, and the aircraft they flew. One group did usability testing with me and the product owner. The other group worked with the lead UX designer and the flight support specialist on general feedback on the application.

The group from the usability test had a number of suggestions to the workflow, design, and new features. We also found a few bugs in the application that hadn’t been discovered in other testing. I also found a number of wins in the application that the team enjoyed hearing about.

Since the product owner was in the room for the testing, she was able to hear feedback directly from the pilots and understand the severity of the issues. We worked together to prioritize issues and features in the backlog for the application.

I also worked closely with the lead UX designer to review screens prior to testing, heuristic evaluation, and some screen design.