Using a human-centered lens to redesign a complex multi-step flight upgrade workflow for a start-up.
B2B2C
E-commerce white label
0-1 Design
The premise
This casestudy summarizes my work with a company that provides a white label e-commerce platform for the airline industry. They introduced a new ‘flight upgrade bidding system’ allowing passengers to purchase or place bids on flight upgrades.
The original ask
"Make it look better"
In trying to win a new partnership with an airline, they needed to differentiate through their neighbour-free seat upgrade offer. They also wanted to expand their service offerings with multiple upgrade workflows. They needed a UI refresh of their bidding platform in time for their demo.
Due to NDAs I do not show final designs nor mention the company name. Please email me for more information about this work.
The challenges.
The business challenge
Without a consistent design pattern for the flight upgrade platform, engineers had to build each upgrade from scratch. This lack of componentization and scalability risked the need for major development costs to maintain the disparate upgrade solutions.
These factors impact their bottom line interests to secure new partners and expand service offerings to scale quickly.
The human challenge
Not only did user testing show their current design system was confusing to users, but that there was a deeper unresolved issue: Passengers didn’t trust the bidding process, and this was compounded by their lack of trust in the airline industry as a whole. I was met with a recurring sentiment from users:
“I’m scared of losing my money. Our flight also got canceled once and it was a difficult situation to sort out. So I would rather not attempt anything new."
My role.
…and how it evolved
From a UI appoach…
My initial role was to give the platform a UI refresh, ahead of the demo.
…To a user-centered approach
A UI refresh doesn’t necessarily make a product more user-centric or more honest. And while the platform is a cutting-edge solution for the airline industry, the success of the service relies greatly on one thing: Customer trust & satisfaction.
Through research, the persona that evolved was centred around trust and transparency. I needed a design that would make sure passengers didn’t make mistakes, were aware of what to expect when bidding, and ultimately avoided risks and felt safe. Central to this challenge was the need to manage multiple choice points—such as switching between passengers or bidding on different seats—within a seamless user experience.
…To a human-centered solution
Taking a human-centric lens meant creating a better experience not just for end customers, but also for developers, who rely on this system to deliver upgrades.
To solve for this, I focused on creating a scalable, reusable modular design pattern that could adapt to all upgrade types—streamlining development and aligning with growth ambitions, all while working on their most complex workflow: the neighbour-free seat upgrade.
Everything I did.
I always adapt my approach to the problem that’s presented. I conducted a stakeholder alignment interviews to understand what the client wants, and then formulated a plan to dig deeper into what they need. Here are some of things I did:
1. Conducted a heuristic evaluation to identify core assumptions about the existing platform.
2. Set metrics through benchmark tests to identify the task completion rate (it was 20%).
3. Observe and ask follow up questions about the process — This proved vital in digging deeper and understanding how and why passengers felt a lack of trust about the bidding process.
4. Understand risks through journey maps beyond the interaction with the bidding platform — To identify emotional touchpoints and real-life consequences when a passenger loses a bid.
The outcome
Due to NDAs I do not show final designs, but talk about some of the techniques used instead. Please email me for more information about this work.
Using wayfinding techniques to guide passengers through the process.
To ensure each step was completed for all passengers on a ticket.
To improve trustworthiness of the system.
So passengers can see seat selections and bids.
For easy access to bids and purchases.
to answer passengers' questions and concerns.
adaptable to all other types of flight ancillaries.
The result
80%
Task completion rates improved from 20% to 80%.
Established a scalable design pattern that can now be used for multiple ancillaries.
They implemented the redesign with their new airline clients.
My contribution & learnings
By designing for passengers first, I streamlined a disjointed engineering effort into a consistent, component-based system; establishing a scalable & modular design pattern that can now be adapted for all upgrade types. This resulted in a better human experience not just for end customers, but also for the business and engineers.
Introducing iterative design concepts to a startup unfamiliar with these practices wasn’t easy. I advocated for evidence-based decision-making and the value of user feedback, while maintaining a collaborative approach and celebrating small wins along the way. My developer handoff, for example, was quickly embraced. I worked with the team, to understand what they valued and how to incorporate agile concepts. I presented my low-fidelity prototypes at an early stage, and continued to align on direction throughout the process.
As an equity-based designer coming from public policy, this work challenged and strengthened my ability to balance empathy and human-centered advocacy with client goals. I ultimately created a more trustworthy, passenger-friendly experience in a space typically defined by impersonal services and processes.
