Air Canada 737 MAX
In-Flight Entertainment

A new aircraft, a new experience — but does it actually work?

Air Canada was introducing the Boeing 737 MAX with a completely redesigned in-flight entertainment and connectivity (IFEC) system comprised of a seatback visual display unit (SVDU) touchscreen experience paired with a personal entertainment device (PED) companion experience. The system was ambitious: flight timeline navigation, entertainment, food and drink ordering, destination city guides, social media integration, and Wi-Fi purchasing, all unified in a single interface.

Before the planes entered service, Panasonic Avionics and Air Canada needed to know whether real passengers could actually use it confidently, without help, across every task the system was designed to handle. And they needed to find out with enough time to fix what wasn’t working.

RITE: test, fix, verify... then do it again

RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation) is a methodology built around speed: identify a problem, make a consensus decision about the fix, implement it immediately, then test again with the next participant. No waiting for a synthesis phase to catch up to design.

I led the research program end-to-end: designed the protocol, recruited and screened participants, facilitated all sessions, synthesized findings into prioritized issue logs, documented design change rationale, and contributed directly to prototype iteration in Sketch and InVision alongside the design team. The team was lean — two designers and me — which meant every role counted and the loop between research and design was as tight as possible.

Three rounds in Seattle tested 10 participants (ages 26–65, mixed gender and trip frequency). Each round followed a 1-day testing, 2-day iteration cadence. A fourth round in Toronto added 7 participants — a mix of Air Canada employees (flight attendants, service directors) and Elite Altitude frequent flyers — providing high-stakes validation from people who had genuinely high expectations.

Participants completed 17 tasks spanning both the seatback and personal device prototypes: startup, entertainment browsing, purchasing internet service, ordering food and drink, social media posting, and destination exploration. Protocol was designed to be flexible enough to handle the realities of testing in improvised environments while structured enough to produce comparable data across rounds.

From observations to a design system

Beyond running the research, I contributed directly to the design work, documenting the before/after rationale for each interface change, and working in Sketch and InVision to prototype the iterations being tested. This included a comprehensive component library: button states, card types, filters, content templates, and the flight timeline component in every state and color mode.

The flight timeline — a persistent element showing the passenger’s position in their journey, with interactive service milestones — was one of the most tested and refined components. Early versions had non-obvious interactive dots and confusing navigation hierarchy. By Round 3, it had been rebuilt into a clear, delightful feature that participants actively noticed and appreciated.

An “A” grade, and a system ready to fly

The system scored 81.0 on the System Usability Scale, placing it in the top 10% of products ever tested against the SUS benchmark, and well above the industry average of 68. The Round 1 cohort alone rated it in the top 2%. Task success across all 17 tasks and all 4 rounds averaged 97%, with purchasing tasks hitting 100%.

The Toronto round validated that findings held across a more demanding audience consisting of Air Canada employees and frequent flyers with high expectations of the product and deep familiarity with competing systems. One participant who previously considered Emirates to have the best IFE in the industry revised that opinion mid-session.

The iterative structure meant that by the time the study closed, the most critical issues had already been fixed and verified, not just documented. The design was ready.