Improving Wayfinding at Dubai Airports
Improving Wayfinding at Dubai Airports
Improving Wayfinding at Dubai Airports
6 min est. read
Overview
DXB serves an average of 7.9 million travelers a month, based on 95.2 million annual passengers, making it the world's busiest airport by international traffic. At that scale, wayfinding isn't a nice to have, it's the difference between someone making their connection and someone missing it.
Most airport navigation is designed around the building. Terminal maps, gate directories, static signage logic, the kind of system that assumes every traveler is solving the same problem: where am I, and where do I need to go. But a traveler who just landed and needs baggage claim is in a completely different mental state than someone connecting to a flight in forty minutes, and handing them the same map ignores that.
I restructured DXB's wayfinding around traveler intent rather than terminal geography, redesigning the experience for four distinct traveler types, arriving, departing, transiting, and connecting, each with a different urgency level and a different first question they need answered.
My Role
Senior Product Designer
Responsibilities
User Research
Navigation Experience Direction
Timeline
Q2 2025
Outcomes
Outcomes
Faster Decisions
Stronger hierarchy and signal clarity made primary routes and key nodes immediately readable without scanning.
Stronger hierarchy and signal clarity made primary routes and key nodes immediately readable without scanning.
Less Cognitive Load
Competing visual elements were rebalanced so the most critical information surfaced first under pressure.
Competing visual elements were rebalanced so the most critical information surfaced first under pressure.
Cross Device Clarity
Color, typography, and contrast refined to work consistently across every screen size and use case.
Color, typography, and contrast refined to work consistently across every screen size and use case.
The Solution
A look at the final design before we get into how it came together.
A look at the final design before we get into how it came together.
The Challenge
The existing experience had two core problems.
It felt like a different product entirely. Google Maps and Apple Maps have set the standard for how digital maps feel and behave. Express Maps didn't resemble either. For users navigating a high pressure environment like an airport, that unfamiliarity created friction at exactly the wrong moment.
The interaction layer was doing too much. Search results, category icons, filters, and information panels were all competing at the same visual weight. In a navigation context where users need to find something fast, visual competition slows everything down.
The existing experience had two core problems.
It felt like a different product entirely. Google Maps and Apple Maps have set the standard for how digital maps feel and behave. Express Maps didn't resemble either. For users navigating a high pressure environment like an airport, that unfamiliarity created friction at exactly the wrong moment.
The interaction layer was doing too much. Search results, category icons, filters, and information panels were all competing at the same visual weight. In a navigation context where users need to find something fast, visual competition slows everything down.
Discovery
Airport wayfinding usually fails the same way. It's designed around the building, terminal maps, gate directories, static signage logic, rather than around the traveler's actual state of mind at that moment. Someone who just landed and needs baggage claim is solving a completely different problem than someone connecting to a flight in forty minutes, but most systems hand them the same map.
Before defining the structure, I looked at how travelers were actually reaching Dubai Airports' digital properties. Traffic data showed over 800,000 monthly visits, with the overwhelming majority, over 80 percent, on mobile. Average session length sat under a minute. That told me two things early: this had to work as a fast, glanceable mobile experience, not a desktop style information site, and travelers weren't browsing, they were looking something up and leaving.
Airport wayfinding usually fails the same way. It's designed around the building, terminal maps, gate directories, static signage logic, rather than around the traveler's actual state of mind at that moment. Someone who just landed and needs baggage claim is solving a completely different problem than someone connecting to a flight in forty minutes, but most systems hand them the same map.
Before defining the structure, I looked at how travelers were actually reaching Dubai Airports' digital properties. Traffic data showed over 800,000 monthly visits, with the overwhelming majority, over 80 percent, on mobile. Average session length sat under a minute. That told me two things early: this had to work as a fast, glanceable mobile experience, not a desktop style information site, and travelers weren't browsing, they were looking something up and leaving.
From there I mapped four distinct traveler states, arriving, departing, transiting, and connecting, each with a different urgency level and a different question they needed answered first.
From there I mapped four distinct traveler states, arriving, departing, transiting, and connecting, each with a different urgency level and a different question they needed answered first.
Key Decisions
Working Within Real Constraints
Working Within Real Constraints
The Pointr map in the background was fixed. I had no control over the map's visual look and feel, its satellite view, its rendering style. My scope was everything users interact with on top of it. Search, categories, results, selection states, transitions. That constraint made the work more focused, not less.
The Pointr map in the background was fixed. I had no control over the map's visual look and feel, its satellite view, its rendering style. My scope was everything users interact with on top of it. Search, categories, results, selection states, transitions. That constraint made the work more focused, not less.
Intent Based Entry
Intent Based Entry
Research had established that Express Maps was serving several distinct audiences through one undifferentiated entry point. An arriving passenger needs baggage and exits. A departing passenger needs gates and check in. Someone meeting a traveler needs arrivals information. A transiting passenger needs something different again. We added an intent selection step at the start so the experience could orient itself around what the user actually came to do rather than making them figure it out themselves.
Research had established that Express Maps was serving several distinct audiences through one undifferentiated entry point. An arriving passenger needs baggage and exits. A departing passenger needs gates and check in. Someone meeting a traveler needs arrivals information. A transiting passenger needs something different again. We added an intent selection step at the start so the experience could orient itself around what the user actually came to do rather than making them figure it out themselves.
Visual Hierarchy First
Visual Hierarchy First
Map elements were rebalanced so the most important information stood out immediately. Primary routes and key locations got stronger visual treatment. Secondary information receded. The goal was that a user looking for their gate could find it without scanning everything at equal weight.
Map elements were rebalanced so the most important information stood out immediately. Primary routes and key locations got stronger visual treatment. Secondary information receded. The goal was that a user looking for their gate could find it without scanning everything at equal weight.
Familiar Interaction Patterns
Familiar Interaction Patterns
Every interaction decision was made with familiarity in mind. Search behavior, result presentation, selection states, and transitions were all designed to feel like something users had used before. Reducing the learning curve in a high pressure navigation moment directly reduces cognitive load.
Every interaction decision was made with familiarity in mind. Search behavior, result presentation, selection states, and transitions were all designed to feel like something users had used before. Reducing the learning curve in a high pressure navigation moment directly reduces cognitive load.
Discoverability Beyond the Product
Discoverability Beyond the Product
A wayfinding tool only works if people find it before they need it. During the work it became clear that Express Maps was hard to reach from the main Dubai Airports website, which meant users were often discovering it late or not at all. I raised this with the team and proposed changes to improve how the maps surfaced from the wider site, a problem sitting outside the brief but directly limiting the impact of everything inside it.
A wayfinding tool only works if people find it before they need it. During the work it became clear that Express Maps was hard to reach from the main Dubai Airports website, which meant users were often discovering it late or not at all. I raised this with the team and proposed changes to improve how the maps surfaced from the wider site, a problem sitting outside the brief but directly limiting the impact of everything inside it.
Validation
Users who had signed up for usability sessions were given the interactive prototype and a goal to complete. Participants were grouped by demographic, arriving, departing, transiting, and observed against journeys matching how they'd actually use the product.
Testing against real intent rather than a generic task is what made the findings usable. Someone rushing to a gate behaves differently from someone waiting on an arrival, and the insights from each group fed back into the journey before launch.
Users who had signed up for usability sessions were given the interactive prototype and a goal to complete. Participants were grouped by demographic, arriving, departing, transiting, and observed against journeys matching how they'd actually use the product.
Testing against real intent rather than a generic task is what made the findings usable. Someone rushing to a gate behaves differently from someone waiting on an arrival, and the insights from each group fed back into the journey before launch.
Outcomes
Visual refinements across a navigation platform used by millions of commuters, visitors, and logistics users at one of the world's busiest airports. Route interpretation became faster, cross device readability improved, and cognitive load during navigation tasks was reduced by giving more important information stronger visual weight and letting secondary information recede.
Visual refinements across a navigation platform used by millions of commuters, visitors, and logistics users at one of the world's busiest airports. Route interpretation became faster, cross device readability improved, and cognitive load during navigation tasks was reduced by giving more important information stronger visual weight and letting secondary information recede.
Learnings
The most impactful decisions on this project were about what to remove rather than what to add. Reducing visual competition between elements made the same information easier to read without changing the underlying content. Restraint in a navigation context is not a stylistic choice, it is a functional one.
Working within constraints imposed by a third party platform focused the design effort in a useful way. When you can't change the map, you get very deliberate about everything sitting on top of it.
An airport doesn't have one user. Treating departing, arriving, and transiting passengers as a single audience was the structural problem underneath the visual one, and no amount of hierarchy work would have solved it on its own.
The most impactful decisions on this project were about what to remove rather than what to add. Reducing visual competition between elements made the same information easier to read without changing the underlying content. Restraint in a navigation context is not a stylistic choice, it is a functional one.
Working within constraints imposed by a third party platform focused the design effort in a useful way. When you can't change the map, you get very deliberate about everything sitting on top of it.
The most impactful decisions on this project were about what to remove rather than what to add. Reducing visual competition between elements made the same information easier to read without changing the underlying content. Restraint in a navigation context is not a stylistic choice, it is a functional one.
Working within constraints imposed by a third party platform focused the design effort in a useful way. When you can't change the map, you get very deliberate about everything sitting on top of it.