The Opportunity
Boeing sought to redefine digital learning in their training facilities for maintenance technicians. With maintenance training being a critical component of the delivery of a new airplane, they needed a more personalized, adaptable, and portable training experience that could accelerate training time and replicate hands-on experience, while still being in the classroom setting.
The Hurdle
Boeing’s instructors were experts in their fields but recognized that lecture-based teaching wasn’t as engaging as it could be. Hands-on access to planes was costly and infrequent, creating a gap between learning and application. They wanted to improve accessibility and the teaching model but lacked a clear solution. Additionally, effective classroom elements relied on sets of wall mounted screens, making them difficult to adapt to a portable, single-screen format.
The Solution
Working together, we shifted their learning model from an instructor-driven lecture based approach, to a student paced “learn by doing” model in a portable, single screen, simulation experience. This approach increased student engagement, decrease costs to the company, created new revenue streams, and provide the same level of experience whether it was performed on-site in the manufacturer’s classroom, or in one of their buyer’s classrooms.
Details
Business Impact: Successfully launched internally and become a new line of revenue with Boeing’s customer base.
Project Length: 7 years
Team Size: 7
My Role: Design Director
Contributions:
Product Design Management
Design Team Leadership
User Research
User Experience Design
User Interface Design
Motion design
Stakeholder management
Quality Assurance
“How can we embed the expertise of the instructor into experience?”
From paper and pencil to digital desktop
Fitting the entire classroom experience on one portable laptop was key to the products success. It also made for significant UX challenges.
Spatial awareness
Using 3D environements to train students allows for spatial awarness and component location to be “learned by doing”.
Deeper Engagmement
By interacting directly with the environment, students increase task comprehension and retain information better.