As the corporate site describes the company, "Astronics Custom Control Concepts (ACCC) designs, engineers, manufactures and certifies reliable digital in-flight entertainment and cabin management systems (IFE/CMS) for the corporate, private and VIP aircraft industry." Every project at ACCC is bespoke, and designed for the exclusive use of select clientele and their support staff. I work closely with the completion center, where the plane is physically assembled, to ensure that our design fits requirements and feel of all other components on the plane.
My role in this process is keeping the customer's experience in mind, typically in four ways:
Requirements Gathering
The first step in the design process is gathering any and all documentation provided by internal and external stakeholders.
Because of who our customers frequently are, the identity of the end customer is rarely known by internal teams. Instead, we work with the customer's representative, their interior designer, and the completion center. Part of my job is keeping all stakeholders aware of the decisions being made and obtaining their sign off at regular intervals.
Low Fidelity Prototyping
Building flow diagrams and low fidelity clickable prototypes in Axure for the completion center and customer representatives to test. This process can be iterated on until the customer satisfied with the general flow of the project.
Typically, during this step the team's graphic and visual designers are building a package using the plane's interior design scheme as inspiration.
High Fidelity Prototyping
Once the low fidelity prototypes and graphics packages are approved, they are combined into a high fidelity prototype to give the customer taste of the final experience.
Depending on the size of the aircraft, this can be as small as fifty pages over two prototypes or as large seven hundred pages over a dozen prototypes. Part of my job is ensuring that each prototype is consistent in flow and feel to each of the other projects.
Development
The final step in the process is recreating the high fidelity prototypes in our in-house development tool. This allows our Systems team to connect our designs to the lights, climate control, and entertainment systems on the plane. This pixel perfect recreation is then tested in a mock plane at the ACCC facility before final delivery to the completion center.
Demonstation
With very few exceptions, all work done by our team is under a non-disclosure agreement. This video was done before I joined the Astronics, but still matches the general aesthetic and functionality of the work that I do. Our custom system is shown from 1:52 to 3:12.
Sample Projects
Because projects presented to customers are covered by NDA, these are sample projects created and not shown to any external stakeholder. Projects load in new tabs.
Sample plane, with tablet and phone displays.