Elevating the trading experience and schedule management for pilots.

client

A top four ranked major airline in the U.S.

form

Desktop, Tablet, Mobile

duration

4 months

Role

UX/UI Designer and User Reseacher

industry

Travel & Transportation

type

Pilot tool

Throughout the duration of 4 months the team was able to placeholder content, etc.

There is more to say but this is placeholder content at the moment. I will fill it in in a bit I just want to get some content on here.

This project is under an NDA. Anything viewed must remain confidential (hence the passcode lock). Thx :)

Refining the trip trade section of a broader application.

Project Overview

Deliverables

UI Design Mockups - Over 300 responsive desktop, responsive tablet (landscape and portrait), and responsive mobile screens.
UT Research Report - Two rounds of UT testing.
Rapid Design Workshop - In-person, 3-day rapid design workshop aimed at aligning stakeholders and end-users on a future state application.

My Role

UX/UI Design, UT, Workshop co-facilitator, design read-outs with stakeholders and end users.

Tools

Figma, Mural

Duration

4 Months (Oct 2023 - Feb 2024)

Design Methods

UXR (workshop)
UI Design
UT

The Context

United pilots currently rely on a third-party application for managing schedules and trip trades.

The Problem

Using a third-party app presents significant vulnerabilities and operational challenges. Additionally, a pilot's experience is not tailored to their own company.

The Objective

Design and develop a robust, internally-owned application tailored to United pilots' needs, elevating the trading experience and schedule management for pilots. IBM's primary focus was on refining the trip trade section of the comprehensive application.

Rapid Design Thinking Workshop

This workshop was specifically designed to create a foundation of ideation and designs that enables us to move forward and build an MVP within a few days.

Day 1: Current state. What are the pain points and what can we envision the future to look like? After envisioning, we got to work on lo-fi designs and presented them for critique.
Day 2: We iterate from the feedback we got the previous day and present new and updated designs. We present for critique. We iterate again, and again, and again.
Day 3: After multiple rounds of iteration, we present high-fidelity designs. This is what the experience will look like. Exciting!

Sprints!🏃🏽‍♀️

Now it was a matter of covering all our bases.

United IT team would give us user stories.
We would design to our understanding of them, sync with the team, and iterate as we saw fit.
Sync #2 with IT, get an okay on designs, and present to pilots.
We would iterate based on pilot critiques, and send them out again for sign-off.
Repeat steps 1-5 for 6 sprints.

In between sprints, I had the opportunity to hang out in the O'Hare pilot base to gorilla user test with pilots. This was another opportunity to iterate towards a better experience.

After finishing a set of sprints, our other designer Vedant would prototype it in Figma based on the UT guide I created.
"Hi, we're trying to create a new experience for your so-loved *third-party application*, want to give us your thoughts?" - I said
After testing and noticing patterns, it was time to go home.

Lessons Learned

This was my first engagement being a full-time IBM-er.

Design isn't magic. It's the result of humans doing good & hard work. I learned to set boundaries with project managers who were promising exceptional experiences at the expense of the rest of the team.
COMPONENTS AND VARIANTS. I learned to leverage the power of Figma a bit late into the project. I will NEVER make that mistake again.
Documentation is essential. It's time-consuming and boring, we all know that but wow is it vital. Documenting the feedback received and changes made based on the feedback would have saved the team a whole lot of back-and-forth trouble.