Vanilla sky

Introduction

The main agenda is to view which flights are in the air and the expected landing/taking off time.

For example- I often receive packets from my parents, flights from TLV to ZRH occur twice a week and sometimes more often. If I see a flight is happening today, I can expect my package to arrive in 1-2 days, this information is usually crossed with parcel tracking apps like 17track, but the info only appears there much later.

I wanted to create another interactive map with flight tracking, something simpler than the ones on my phone. I wanted to have a view of flights around me at all times, since my kid keeps asking me where the planes are going and I need to make something up :)

Stages:

1) I read and understood the differences between iOS and Android design. I practiced recognizing the nature of an app by looking at it’s home page. 

2) I wireframed the project using Sketch, paying attention to maintaining consistent and standard design paradigms.

3) I developed the wireframes from low to high fidelity, ensuring that all elements were appropriately aligned to grids to give users a pleasant and balanced experience. 4) I made sure to use a recognizable set of icons that clearly conveyed meaning so that there would be no confusion in how to use the app.

5) I added colors that helped draw attention to certain parts of the app and also made sure to use some design trends, such as bold colors in tabs.

I encountered a challenge with colors on the map and I’m happy I picked gray, since the planes and routes really pop.

6) I added gestures, sounds and physical feedback to engage the user and make them feel more comfortable if something went wrong.

Summary of Outcome:

If I wanted to continue designing Vanilla sky, I would try to create collaborations with parcel tracking and or with airlines to share more live data. 

Cross referencing incoming flights with parcel tracking, gives me a really good idea of where my package will arrive (even if the post only offers partial tracking).

In the future I was thinking about combining some track links like https://www.17track.net/en

Questions-

I think there should be some special UI indication for when a flight has landed safely but I’m not sure how I should go about it?