TEDActive Projects Travel
The TEDActive Travel Project will examine customer experience onboard the plane and beyond the terminal. We'll look at the challenges and opportunities, for both individual travelers and the airline industry, and produce a set of recommendations to enhance air travel. Join the conversation »
Browse conversations about the Travel Project »
Travel Project news from the TEDActive Blog:
03 March 2011
Drifting away from a product-based solution … maybe
As an industrial designer, I’m inclined towards a product-based solution … but that’s the great thing about collaboration. I’m open to having my process change and respond to the ideas of other team members, and any individuals who want to add to the travel project.
What if it was simply a new product?
- A better armrest that splits in the middle, allowing both users to use it without giving up space or comfort.
- A chair that comfortably reclines without interfering with the passenger behind you. A seat that gently supports your lumbar. A footrest that extends without dramatically increasing the horizontal footprint of your personal comfort pod.
- A sound system that cancels the noise around the cabin but allows you to speak to your immediate companion.
- In-flight entertainment that allows you any content (including Internet) at your command.
- On demand refreshments.
- A short list of questions that allows the airlines to select your perfect travel companion and cabin placement according to your personal needs.
Think about the resetting of expectations — we obviously live in a culture of entitlement. Can we simply say, “Suck it up, buttercup,” or is there a better solution? How are each of us as individuals responsible for our condition? Is it simply a matter of being polite? Is it being happier with what me have? We want to empower both passengers and the airlines to take back some of the responsibility on the airways.
Wow, the timeline is pretty short …
03 March 2011
Losing control
Last night, our project team came together to discuss our findings of the last 36 hours. What was supposed to be an hour-long reveal became hours of in-depth discussion.
We’ve all heard about passengers feeling anxiety, a loss of power, and a loss of dignity.
On the other side, airline staff only have access to specific information. They are constrained by security, safety, and organizational factors. When they want to help, they often don’t have the ability.
Both passengers and staff become frustrated, creating a negative feedback loop for all.
To create a user-centered airline experience, we realized that we need to address both sides of this equation. The concept that surfaced:
A sense of control.
From this, discussions turned to shared destinations, transparency, purpose, and agency.
Now, our challenge now is to distill specific actions that can help everyone regain a sense of control.
03 March 2011
Joe Airline, I’ll be Pimpin’ my ride!
Typically, when buying a ticket, we fight for an emergency row or a aisle seat near the front.
But what if I told you that your airline of choice could magically seat you next to someone who might be in a position to push your big idea to the next level? What I’m talking about is the magic of profiling, social networking, and algorithms.
The idea is quite simple. When setting up your frequent flier account, we are given the option to add a private (or public) profile which tells a bit about who we are. Then, when choosing a seat on our next flight, the airline can now offer you the additional option of allowing their algorithm to select other passengers on that same flight who you may want to sit next to onboard your flight. At no point would your information be revealed to others.
Whatcha think?
02 March 2011
Updates from the Ground
In my experiences with collaborative design work, the convergence of brainstormed ideas is a sure sign of progress. Here in Palm Springs, the task of distilling a massively productive-yet-diverse brainstorm into a clear direction toward action seems to be moving forward. From the diverse issues presented by Bryan in a previous blog post, the group is beginning to center around a few major issues — a great sign.
These are:
1. Proxemics: How do we regain a sense of personal space on a plane?
2. How can we better empower passengers’ control over their experience? (the typical flight experience tends to force passengers to hand their bags, security and even their hunger and thirst over to the airline)
3. How can we use passengers’ shared origin and destination to provide convenience, engagement and entertainment?
For questions 1 and 2, there’s an important question surrounding whether we can (or need to) actually solve the problem given security, logistical and political constraints, or whether we can use psychology/design to artificially generate the experience.
For question 3, we’re discussing how we can use the geographical landscape of the destination city as part of the in-flight entertainment interface. The goal is to generate informative and social interactions.
With so many great minds in collusion, only good can come out of this. Other TEDActive participants are constantly stopping by, participating in the discussion – we’re capturing the usable nuggets of freeform ideation. The next group meeting is with a drink near the pool and campfire in the Riviera’s courtyard. Join us – bring inspiration! 
01 March 2011
Takeoff
Day 1 is done.
It proved to be the day we took one question and broke it apart into many questions (see below). In the process the collective conversation touched upon a myriad of topics (also see below).
To close our session, we self-identified the newly formed question and/or theme each of us is most passionate about further exploring. Moving forward we will engage the broader TED community to help identify the opportunities and generate ideas around each of our question of interest.
The highlight of the day has to be when a team member shouted out an age old question. It’s one I’ve personally struggled with my entire life. Solve this and we save the world.
Who should give up the armrest first?
Questions Raised:
How can we integrate the actual geographic journey to keep the passenger grounded?
How to help passengers cocoon?
How can we unlock the creative potential of flight attendants?
How do we learn and understand what changes are being made based on our feedback?
How can passengers have a chance to improve our own end-to-end experience?
How can we help passengers help themselves to a better airline experience?
What should an airline culture be like?
Can travel become more DIY or participatory?
How can we make the system more flexible?
Can we put all the families on one plane?
How can we control peak times?
How can we help airlines express a culture of respect through staff?
How do we change the entrance to make a feeling of welcome?
How can we change the jet way experience?
How might lighting impact the flying experience?
Can multiple experiences be provided and would that engage differently?
Could there be program specific spaces?
Can we vertically stagger seating?
How do we put the talkers in a certain seating on the plane?
Could we create a connect group on facebook before journey or is this a security risk?
How might environmental factors impact anxiety?
How can we make it easier to enjoy a meal?
How can we help people feel comfortable sitting so close to a stranger?
How might social spaces on a plane work?
How can we make it a more active flight?
How can we add confidence in pre-security to enable freedom on a plane?
How could we create the passenger experience while maintaining realities of security and policy?
How can we educate on the geographical journey so the passengers feel more comfortable?
What are the on plane improvements that will make the passengers feel more empowered?
How do you measure change in action?
How do you maintain control?
How can an airline become a part of the social graph?
What is the true definition of loyalty? And how do you reward it?
How much do you want the airlines to know about you?
What is the right system of rewards?
What can an airline do before the flight to make it better?
How do we manage different anthropometrics?
How do we manage disembarking?
Topics Discussed:
Personal space
Crowdsourcing
Personalized
Loyalty
Rewards
Local
Foresight
Social contracts
Reminders
Onboard identity
Flexible management
Service vs. security tension
Measurement
Feedback
Dating
Disconnect
Autonomy
Plane personas
Inevitable mishaps
Delays
Control
Geography
Sense of journey vs. trip
Sightseeing
Order & discovery
Family
Care
Generosity
Management being manic vs depressive
Virgin
Profit
TSA – friend or foe?
Freedom on flight
Security
Person and bag = 1 unit
Passenger to passenger
Downtime
Feedback
Transparency
Culture
Empowerment
Anxiety
Social
Ambient
Rhythms
Sustainability
Class system
Spatial solutions
Differentiation
17 February 2011
Have Love, Will TRAVEL.
Like most TEDsters, I’ve always been doing. Creating, advising, writing, consulting, researching, exploring, managing, studying, teaching, designing, performing, meditating, contemplating, and the list goes on. This lifestyle beckons two absolute realities. One, time management efforts to combat the stress of a full plate, and two, a significant amount of travel. From business trips, conference presentations, research fellowships, pilgrimages and vacations, I’ve seen my fair share of the inside of a plane.
Multiple Truths in M.C. Escher’s “Relativity”
When invited to participate in TEDActive’s Travel Project (an intimidating honour), I started to tackle the human-centered flight experience in my own research style. My first thought was to take this large problem and boil it down to its essentials. In my design work, I have developed a brainstorm-generator surrounding the concept of “multiple truths”. The idea aligns with the contemporary zeitgeist; whether you call it pluralism, post-modernism, or even the culture of remix, our minds have become a flowchart expanding in all directions. As the list grew, it began to appear as a clear opportunity to inspire collaboration in preparation for the upcoming conference. So here goes!
The “Multiple Truths” of TRAVEL: An Airline Flight is…
- A place to focus
- A perpetual transition
- A time-sensitive context
- An intimidating journey
- A stressful necessity
- A class separation
- A social medium
- An exciting adventure
- A place for reflection
- A constricted discomfort
- A trusted service
- A metaphor for success
- A dream come true
- A safety hazard
- A step toward/away from love
- A confrontation with mortality
- …
Fellow travelers… please add to the list !
14 February 2011
TEDActive Welcomes PSFK’s PurpleList Experts to the Projects!
Via PSFK.com
TEDActive is so excited to have PSFK on board as a collaborator for the TEDActive Projects! They have invited their friends to explore, collaborate and act on vital issues raised at TED, and is actively engaging their expert network, the PurpleList, to give their valuable input for the different teams involved with the projects.
Their experts have already joined in on the conversation! Check out their feedback for the following projects!
Education
Mobility
Sustainability
Social Networks
Travel
07 February 2011
ideas worth doing
The pound-for-pound talent tonnage of TEDsters boggles the mind. It is absolutely the thing that makes the TED community so incandescent, as well as so humbling and deeply neat-o to be a part of. So it is no small thing to aim this talent at very real problems with the goal of emerging from the gathering with ideas worth doing, as is happening this year for the first time with TEDActive Projects.
No doubt that some wonderfully innovative approaches will surface. The question that has us nibbling our nails is how they will translate into action.
Introducing IfWeRanTheWorld
One way is through the use of a very new, very beta platform called IfWeRanTheWorld, the brain/love child of Cindy Gallop (of MakeLoveNotPorn fame). IfWeRanTheWorld is an online platform that is designed to power real-world action. It makes it very easy for good & talented people to work together to achieve a common goal – be it host a dodgeball tournament or expand an urban community farm program or only eat cupcakes with lots of icing. Microactions are the coin of this realm – they are small, eminently doable tasks that, when added together, make things happen.
On IfWeRanTheWorld, you are what you do – it is where you ‘walk’ your social media ‘talk’. If Facebook is the social graph and Twitter the interest graph, then IfWeRanTheWorld is the action graph.
Here’s how it works:
- Bring your project, talent, inspiration and good intentions to ifwerantheworld.com
- Answer the question, “If I ran the world, I would….”.
- Join forces with other people working on similar things by picking up & doing their microactions.
- Accelerate action by suggesting microactions, and inviting your network to act with you by sharing through Facebook, Twitter, you name it.
- Start an actionplatform (or project) to make something happen on your own.
(if you prefer pictures over words, here is the how-it-works video)
How it might work for TEDActive Projects
The thought for TEDActive Projects is this: Some project teams might publish their solutions as microactions, inviting the wider TED community (and beyond) to do them, report back, & collaborate. Other project teams might use microactions to invite outside insight and expertise on their topic area. Still other project teams might blow our doors off by using microactions in a totally new way.
It feels appropriate to the theme of wonder and the spirit of experimentation that we don’t know exactly how people will make use of IfWeRanTheWorld. For me, though, it just makes it that much more exciting.
That said, I’ll be on hand at TEDActive to help the project teams do their voodoo. If you are interested in IfWeRanTheWorld (or scotch, or experience design as seduction, or comic books), then look for a girl with long blonde & blue hair wearing epic but foolishly high-heels. That’ll be me.
The magnificent shot of Cindy (above) is by Jon Bauer, who says he is ‘mostly doing this stuff for fun’ but who is extraordinary & should be mostly doing this stuff period.
01 February 2011
Be A Part of TEDActive Projects!
We invite you to join us in making ideas worth spreading come alive with the TEDActive Projects! We have invited some of the top experts, leaders, and idea amplifiers from each project theme to come to Palm Springs and collaborate with YOU, our project leaders, in creating a call-to-action on vital issues raised at TEDActive.
As a project leader, you and your group will be part of discussions, workshops, and activities during the conference to help you on your path to finding real solutions to big problems. We also hope this experience at TEDActive will help foster meaningful relationships to continue well beyond the conference.
You will also be invited by the TEDActive team to be a contributing writer to our official TEDActive Community Blog and encourage you to start “tweeting” your project experiences before, during, and after the conference for the public to engage in.
While we invite everyone to partake in this new initiative, spaces are limited to join a project team at TEDActive. We encourage all TEDActive attendees to sign up here on our Project Leader Application Form. Once you receive confirmation from our Projects team, you can immediately begin acting by connecting with your team, and documenting your experiences on our blog!
Be the first to participate as leaders in this exciting new initiative. Act now!
18 January 2011
Welcome to the TEDActive Blog!
This spring, a unique group of people will convene in Palm Springs, California, to exchange ideas, inspire one another and experience a live simulcast of TED2011: The Rediscovery of Wonder. TEDActive brings together global innovators – the doers of the world making a difference in their communities and their professions – to interact and learn from one another while absorbing TED2011…
TEDActive Travel Project on Twitter: #TEDActiveFLY
This project is supported by:
