Lansing Airport
When most people think about the airport experience, they think about the stress of parking, the long wait lines at security, or the struggle of finding their gate. Local airports, like the Capital Region International Airport (LAN) eliminate the hassle of large airport hubs by providing more convenience at every point from the moment you arrive until you’ve boarded your flight. Gravity Works helped LAN promote their airport as a reliable alternative for air travel in the central Michigan region. Our UX team worked closely with their staff on a site-wide content strategy and content rewrite. We also gave their website a new look-and-feel with a fresh design and real-time flight tracking. Using Drupal, we were able to give their staff the CMS tools they need to easily update their website and promote exciting offerings, such as new direct flights.
Sitewide Content Strategy & Writing
LAN understood that a great website must have great content that speaks to their brand and tells their story. That’s why content strategy and copywriting was a large part of the project scope, from kickoff to launch. It wasn’t enough to tell users to Fly Lansing, we had to show them the real value through marketing-focused content. We introduced new content to encourage travelers to choose Lansing for their next trip, such as the “Why Fly LAN” page, which highlights benefits such as supporting local business, added convenience, and new services and amenities. Experience Lansing showcases our vibrant capital city as a destination itself for family attractions, shopping, and dining. A secondary goal of our content strategy was to help current customers find the information they need to feel prepared for their upcoming trip. Web pages like Parking & Transportation and Services & Amenities focus on educating users, answering questions, and helping people anticipate what to expect when they visit. Our content strategy process included a site-wide content audit and analysis, close collaboration with designers and client stakeholders, and content writing. We heavily relied on tools like Content Workflow to help us stay organized and on track throughout the content creation process.
Clean Design & UX Strategy
Navigating an airport can feel overwhelming, especially for first-time travelers. That’s why our goal for the new website design was “simplicity.” We didn’t want strong design elements to distract users from finding the information they needed. We put ourselves in the shoes of travelers (quite literally, with in-person research) to understand why and how they used the website while they were at the airport. We thought about travelers on the day of their trip, whether they were departing or arriving, and what mattered most to them at that moment. Real-time tools, like flight tracking, were most important so we made that data front-and-center on the homepage. Additionally, travelers wanted information about parking and on-site services, so we placed quick links to that content in the homepage hero area where they could quickly find it. The homepage is also opportune real estate for promoting what’s new at the airport. Our design showcases news and announcements and gives LAN space on the homepage to market exciting offerings, such as direct flights to new locations.
Real-Time Flight Tracking
One of the primary reasons people were visiting the LAN website was to check their flight’s arrival or departure time. Since we knew this tool was directly driving traffic to the website, we had to make sure the flight tracking system displayed accurate, real-time data. We built a flight tracker that people could rely on, with a clean interface design that allows people to easily track their flight’s status on a desktop or mobile view. The data powering the real-time flight tracker is pulled from a third party application that transfers a file (FTP) to the website anytime new data is available. Every time a user loads the website, the flight tracker application reads the latest XML file to ensure it’s displaying the most current flight information.
