After looking at wider airport accessibility programmes and collecting visual references, I wanted a more focused review of digital applications. My project currently aims to connect three things: changing journey information, relevant environmental or sensory options, and assistance that travellers can choose to use. An app could be one way of presenting these functions, but I have not established that it is the best or fairest medium. I therefore wanted to see what existing apps already do and how other designers have approached comparable communication problems.
For this scan I distinguish operating products and services, documented on official sites or app listings, from Behance portfolio projects, which may be student exercises, design concepts or unverified proposals. The first group helps me understand existing functions and service dependencies. The second gives me visual and interaction-design precedents, including how designers present research, wireframes, states and choices. Neither kind of source, by itself, establishes usability or effectiveness with autistic adults in airports.
Status: operating product; direct airport-relevant comparator.
GoodMaps — Indoor Navigation Platform | GoodMaps — Airports | App Store listing
GoodMaps is one of the closest functional precedents to my developing idea. Its platform links indoor mapping and navigation across app, web and venue interfaces. The provider describes visual routes, written and audio directions, accessibility preferences and a shared map source. It also explicitly identifies airports among its deployment environments. This matters because it demonstrates that connecting wayfinding across multiple touchpoints is not, by itself, an original concept.
From a graphic-design perspective, I am interested in the relationship between an overview map and the current instruction, and in how one underlying system can maintain a consistent visual language across different displays. I also want to investigate the difference between an accessible route and a sensory-preferred route. Avoiding stairs is not equivalent to knowing whether an area is crowded or noisy, and the available material does not establish that GoodMaps predicts autistic sensory needs. Its airport deployments and reported capabilities are provider descriptions, not independent evidence of effectiveness for my population.
Status: operating app; direct neurodivergence-related airport precedent.
Toronto Pearson — MagnusCards | Pearson — Travel tools for autism and diverse needs
MagnusCards offers step-by-step digital guidance for familiar tasks, with 26 Toronto Pearson card decks covering airport processes such as check-in and boarding. Travellers can review a process before travelling and consult it again in the terminal. I see this as a strong example of reducing a complex activity to a sequence of understandable actions without requiring a sophisticated sensing system.
The design question for my project is how far this staged approach should go. A simple current step might make an immediate action clearer, but it could also hide necessary orientation or alternatives if the interface is too linear. The Pearson material primarily describes prepared process guidance; it does not show that the app independently verifies a new gate or manages live sensory and assistance information. I would like to compare its approach to sequential instructions with an interface that preserves a full journey overview and optional choices.
Status: operating accessibility app and signage system; cross-disability precedent.
NaviLens — Official site | NaviLens — Case studies
NaviLens uses distinctive colour-coded visual markers that phones can recognise at a distance, with audio and haptic guidance in the NaviLens app and visual or augmented-reality information in NaviLens GO. The official deployment list includes airport environments. Unlike a fully phone-centred concept, the system makes a physical sign the entry point to digital information.
For my project, this suggests an interesting way of thinking about continuity between an airport environment and an individual's device. It also raises practical concerns: whether scanning a sign adds work, whether someone has a compatible device, how the information is maintained and what happens if a scan is unavailable. NaviLens was developed especially around blind and low-vision navigation, so I must not assume that the same presentation choices are preferred by autistic adult travellers.
