Hartsfield-Jackson Mobile Site Redesign

Transforming the Atlanta airport’s mobile site experience from overwhelming and confusing to navigable and accessible.

May 2026 | JRMC 7010E

Project Role: Customer Experience Engineer

Quicklinks: User Journey Maps | Prototype | Presentation Video

Project Overview

Using Figma, I designed a UX journey map to follow an anxious traveler’s thoughts, actions, pain points, and feelings using the current Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport’s mobile website. I also created an interactive mobile landing page prototype in Figma, organized chronologically following the intuitive path a traveler would take through ATL for a domestic flight. The primary goal of this redesign is to provide anxious, inexperienced travelers with more clear direction, simplify navigation, and ease travel anxiety that may arise in airport environments.

The Problem

As air travel becomes increasingly ubiquitous, it is imperative that designers take strides to minimize the intimidation around flying and airport experiences.

The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has a reputation as one of the scariest, most chaotic airports in the world. While the airport itself is massive, rather busy, and somewhat complex in its concourse system, the corresponding mobile website certainly amplifies ATL’s intimidation factor.

The current mobile landing page is cluttered and outdated, burying essential navigation tools beneath irrelevant information. In ATL, and most airports in general, travelers are expected to act fast when moving through check-in, security, and concourse navigation. However, anxious or inexperienced travelers may move slower during stressful airport moments, as their ability to locate helpful information posted within the airport may be clouded. What’s worse? Outdated mobile sites like Hartsfield-Jackson’s provide no support for the anxious traveler. In fact, being met with interfaces like these below when in duress can leave travelers feeling heightened anxiety and confusion throughout their airport experiences.

Current frames from Hartsfield-Jackson’s mobile site landing page.

User Journey

Phase 1: To begin solving the problem that is ATL’s mobile website landing page, I developed a persona inspired by the customers I want to support most: anxious, inexperienced travelers. Ginger Jones is a college student who has very limited air travel experience. As a young, in-state college student local to North Carolina, the Atlanta airport is not a space she is comfortable with. Because Ginger has an internship across the country in California this summer, she is flying directly out of ATL for the first time. Building this persona helped me as the experience designer to better visualize specific concerns and pain points that a real anxious traveler might undergo as they move through Hartsfield-Jackson. Additionally, considering a realistic example of the types of people struggling with anxiety around airports humanized the issue for me, motivating me to work even harder to create a practical solution.

Phase 2: Once I nailed down a clear idea of my persona, I moved into Figma and created a user journey following Ginger’s experience trying to use Hartsfield-Jackson’s current mobile site as she progresses chronologically through the airport’s different checkpoints.

Current User Journey Map

As you can see from the user experience across my journey map, the current mobile website did not offer much support at all for this anxious traveler. In fact, the journey map following Ginger demonstrates specific anxious thoughts, actions, and a significant variety of pain points representing the myriad of negative feelings many travelers experience when the support they seek from ATL’s mobile site is unfulfilled. Unfortunately, travelers like Ginger likely often experience similar feelings of confusion, frustration, and even annoyance as a result of the unhelpful nature of Hartsfield-Jackson’s mobile site. Thus, I identified several opportunities corresponding to each phase of getting through the Atlanta airport, from initial arrival all the way to the departure gate.

While the “You Are Here → Gate” functionality was not fully implemented in the prototype, a future iteration could introduce a real-time navigation system. This feature would provide travelers with live directional guidance throughout the airport, dynamically updating their route based on their current location and offering estimated walking times to their gate. By reducing uncertainty and improving efficiency of movement, this system could help make the airport experience feel significantly less stressful and overwhelming for travelers navigating an unfamiliar situation.

The Solution

As a native Georgian and nervous traveler myself, I have grown up flying in and out of Hartsfield-Jackson. However, there are countless times when I have tried and failed receiving support from ATL’s mobile site.My solution to the unaccomodating Hartsfield-Jackson mobile landing page site is a full redesign of the mobile landing page. In the mobile-forward world we live in today, it only makes sense that we should have access to useful guidance on our phones in one of the world’s largest airports. Instead of ATL’s mobile site being overloaded with distractors such as ESG reports or employee recognitions, my redesign aims to present the user with the most important airport and travel information clearly and immediately upon opening the site. Not only does my redesign declutter the mobile interface of the site’s landing page, but it also streamlines the most important information a traveler needs into one clean page.

User Journey Map Post-Redesign

Future User Journey Map using the redesigned ATL mobile site

The Prototype

First, the landing page itself contains a “Quick Help” Navigation Bar, providing a chronological view of 4 links to travel support you might need as you move through ATL. This page is designed for ease and usability, presenting each support page clearly and requiring almost no thought from the user to locate the help they need. The four external interfaces I created follow a traveler’s journey in order: arrival guidance, check-in and bag drop information, highly accurate security wait time live tracking, and concourse navigation tips, all of which are specific to ATL.

Redesigned mobile site landing page prototype

Just arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson? One quick tap on the Arrival Guidance button will take you to the new and improved Arrival Guidance and Welcome to ATL page. This interface is designed to familiarize an anxious traveler with first steps immediately upon arrival to Hartsfield-Jackson, directing them where to go and what steps to take first. The user can quickly navigate back to the Quick Help Nav Bar by tapping the button below arrival information.

Arrival Guidance webpage

Next, the Check-In and Bag Drop interface clearly delineates the specific steps all travelers must take in order to complete checking in for their flight and dropping their checked bags. Although this information might seem natural for some, this interface is designed to reassure anxious and beginner travelers that they are taking the right steps. In large, busy airports like ATL, nervous travelers are often slowed down by feeling overwhelmed or unsure if they checked in properly. Thus, the purpose of the new Check-in and Bag Drop page is to ease this preventable stress and ultimately expedite the check-in process in ATL.

Check-in and Bag Drop: What to Expect

The third page I created as a part of the mobile site’s redesign is a more accurate, clear TSA wait time breakdown (for the two domestic terminals, North and South). Again, I designed this page with clarity and obviousness as the main goals, as both of these elements are lacking in the current site, leading to heightened stress for many travelers. The user is able to toggle between North and South Terminals, compare security wait times at each checkpoint, and make a quicker decision best suited for their travel needs.

Live TSA Wait Time Tracking feature

The fourth and final page I created as a portion of this redesign is the most specific to ATL of all the pages: Plane Train guidance! The Plane Train is arguably one of the most intimidating aspects of Hartsfield-Jackson, and this guide aims to explain what the train is, as well as how to use it easily. When entering ATL unaware of what the Plane Train does, it can feel quite foreign. With my redesign, any travelers nervous about or unfamiliar with the Plane Train have a clear explanation of how to move between concourses via the train at their fingertips.

Plane Train 101 Guide snapshot

My Presentation

[embed]Presentation of Hartsfield-Jackson Redesign

Results and Conclusion

Prior to creating this User Journey Map and Prototype of ATL’s mobile site redesign, I had not yet dove into Figma. However, I learned so much about Figma’s design software throughout this process, allowing me to create and visualize an informative persona and journey map, as well as a prototype I am quite proud of.

All in all, ideating, planning, and eventually creating this project challenged me to step outside of my comfort zone, learn how to use a brand new design software, and think critically about a practical solution to the real-world problem of airport anxiety. I am proud of the end result I created, the new Figma skills I honed, and I’m eager to continue learning and growing as a designer.