Narita International Airport is a complex environment used by travelers from all over the world. Because passenger needs and routes vary widely, the airport receives many ongoing comments about signage clarity. Instead of improving signs one-by-one, this project took a user-centered, end-to-end view of the departure experience to identify systemic wayfinding and signage issues—supporting a more understandable facility from both space (architecture) and operations perspectives.
In a large international airport, “confusion” doesn’t come from one sign—it comes from the full experience: decision points, timing, language barriers, and the mismatch between what passengers need vs. what signage provides. Narita needed a structured, passenger-first investigation to uncover where and why people get lost, hesitate, or ask for help—so future signage planning could be built on real behavior, not assumptions.
(Research + Service Design Lens)
1) Define a realistic scope for maximum impact
Because researching all passenger journeys would be too broad, the project focused on a high-feedback area: Terminal 1 departures, specifically the corridor connecting the South Wing and North Wing. The research was conducted over roughly three months (January–March 2024).
2) Combine deep experience capture + behavioral observation
To understand both “what one person experiences” and “how crowds actually move,” we paired two methods:
Cognitive walkthrough (researchers perform tasks as a target passenger and evaluate the experience)
Fixed-point observation (watching flows and behaviors at key locations across time periods)
3) Walk the journey as two passenger personas
We created two representative virtual personas and evaluated the full departure journey from arrival to boarding:
Persona A: a young traveler going overseas alone for the first time (low airport literacy)
Persona B: a mother traveling with family returning to China (multi-language, with a small child)
To capture the true first-person viewpoint, we used a 360° camera during walkthroughs—recording exactly what passengers see, notice, and miss.
4) Observe real confusion at critical wing transitions
Because the South/North Wing split can be misunderstood, we observed passenger behavior in the connecting corridor (morning / midday / evening), documenting gaze patterns, hesitation, pointing, asking others for help, and other “confusion signals.”
5) Visualize findings and align stakeholders via workshop
We translated findings into Customer Journey Maps, then ran an in-person workshop with airport stakeholders to analyze insights, surface additional viewpoints, and clarify what further investigation might be needed for signage planning.
Customer Journey Maps (built for shared understanding)
We organized passenger actions, signage encountered, thoughts/emotions, and operational context in a time-sequenced journey map. This made it much easier for cross-functional stakeholders to discuss issues by phase and touchpoint (“where” and “what kind of problem”).
Research Report + Priority Insights
We produced a project report summarizing:
observed signage challenges from a user perspective
passenger information needs grouped into four categories
suggested viewpoints for future research to expand understanding across more journeys and behaviors
By making the passenger experience visible end-to-end, the project helped stakeholders share a consistent user perspective and extract practical direction for improving signage planning—moving from reactive fixes to a structured, experience-led approach.
Engagement Type
UX Research / Wayfinding & Signage Experience / Journey Mapping / Stakeholder Workshop
Outputs
Cognitive Walkthrough · Fixed-point Observation · Journey Maps · Workshop Facilitation · Insight Report
Collaboration
UXlicious × CONCENT (Japan)
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