The Study and Design of Collaboration Tools for Flight Attendants

Collaboration is a core component of work activities amongst flight attendants. This is as they work to promote onboard safety and deliver a high level of customer service. Yet we know little of how flight attendants collaborate and how we can best design technology to support this collaboration. Through an interview study with flight attendants, the authors explored their collaborative practices and processes and how technology aided such practices. While technologies like interphones and flight attendant call buttons act as collaboration tools, they identified instances where the usability and functionality of these devices were barriers for maintaining efficient communication, situation awareness, and information exchange. The authors used these results to identify design suggestions for technology that can enhance communication and collaboration in aircraft settings amongst flight attendants. To illustrate these design suggestions, they designed and developed Smart Crew, a smartwatch application that allows flight attendants to maintain an awareness of each other and communicate through messaging with haptic feedback. Smart Crew is designed with an emphasis on real time information access, location updates and direct communication between flight attendants regardless of their location on the airplane.