Trip Trade Redesign
A Faster Way for Pilots to Change
and Exchange Flight Schedules
UNITED AIRLINES
•
LEAD DESIGNER
Redesigning Trip Trade Across Devices and Pilot Workflows
Trip Trade enables United Airlines pilots to manage their schedules by trading trips, dropping assignments, and picking up additional flying. The legacy experience fragmented these tasks across multiple screens, making it difficult to understand eligibility and availability. I led the end-to-end redesign across desktop, tablet, and mobile, creating a more consistent experience for lineholder and reserve pilots.
MY ROLE:
Lead DesignerWorkshop Facilitator
TARGET USERS:
• Lineholder Pilots
• Reserve Pilots
• Crew Scheduling Support
DELIIVERABLES::
Application Flow DiagramLow-Fidelity WireframesHigh-Fidelity WireframesInteractive Prototypes
TOOLS:
FigmaFigjamADOAIPS
DURATION:
+ 12 MONTHS
01
THE PROBLEM
A fragmented workflow for time-sensitive decisions.
Pilots needed to navigate multiple screens to determine which trips they were eligible to trade, check availability, and complete a request. Information that informed a single decision was distributed across the interface, adding unnecessary steps to a time-sensitive process.
// The platform's lack of intuitive navigation forced users to toggle between multiple screens, often resulting in missed opportunities and real operational friction.
The experience also presented a barrier to newly onboarded pilots, who had less familiarity with the system. The redesign therefore needed to do more than refresh the interface: it needed to make eligibility, availability, and next steps easier to understand throughout the trading process.
02
THE USERS
Two pilot workflows, distinct operational needs.
Research with pilots informed two personas representing lineholder and reserve workflows. Although both groups used Trip Trade to manage their schedules, their needs differed. These distinctions helped establish the information, actions, and status indicators each workflow needed to support.
PERSONA 01
Lineholder Pilot
EXPERIENCE
+20 years flying
TECH COMFORT
Moderate
Can't see real-time trade eligibility without trial-and-error. Mobile UX was clunky — trading from a hotel room meant switching to desktop.
PERSONA 02
Reserve Pilot
EXPERIENCE
5 years flying
TECH COMFORT
High
Needs instant visibility into pickup availability and standby status. Lost hours each week clicking through screens to find trips that were already gone.
// "I don't have time to click through five different screens just to find out the trip I wanted was already gone." — Reserve Pilot, user interview
03
THE PROCESS
Establishing a consistent visual language.
A key part of the work was developing a shared iconography system for operationally important pilot states, including short call, field standby, trip alerts, and open or reserved assignments. The icons needed to communicate status quickly and consistently across the interface.
This work extended beyond the Trip Trade redesign, creating reusable visual patterns for other pilot-facing tools. It connected an immediate product need with a broader opportunity to improve consistency across United's digital experience.
Custom Icons
Platform Workflow
04
THE SOLUTION
A unified experience across desktop, tablet, and mobile.
I designed a unified Trip Trade spanning desktop, tablet, and mobile — one component library, one mental model, three breakpoints tuned to how pilots actually work. A pilot on their hotel laptop sees the same patterns as a pilot in uniform on their phone. Learn it once, use it anywhere.
The redesign surfaces critical information upfront: short call, field standby, and trip alerts live at the top of every view. No modals. No scrolling. No surprises.
Responsive Design – Mobile, Tablet, and Desktop
Dark Mode Samples
Below is a curated selection of core screens from the broader 640+ screen initiative — enough to walk through the key flows without exhausting the full catalog:
SELECTED WORKS
THE BEFORE
05
REFLECTION
+ RESULTS
Building beoyond a single feature.
This project brought together a substantial body of work: more than 640 screens across three device types, distinct pilot workflows, and a shared visual language for operationally important information.
The experience also created an opportunity to extend consistent design patterns beyond Trip Trade. For me, the lasting lesson was that large-scale product design requires more than solving the immediate interface problem. It requires creating patterns that support the product today while giving future work a stronger foundation.
01 · OPERATIONAL
Faster trades, lighter support
Measurable decrease in time-to-submit across all three devices, with corresponding drop in scheduling support inquiries.
02 · PEOPLE
Reserve Pilot
Clearer visual hierarchy and consistent iconography reduced new-hire learning curve and gave veteran pilots back control of their schedules.
03 · SYSTEMS
A foundation, not a feature
Established the first scalable pattern library for United's mobile design system — reach extends to every pilot tool shipped after this one.
This project redefined how I approach high-stakes, large-scale design: not as a single artifact to ship, but as a system that outlasts the brief. That mindset is what I bring to every project since.
NOTEWORTHY PROJECT