Modernizing Flight Dispatch for Critical Operations
Prototype: Provide on interview due to content sensitivity.
Role: Lead UX/UI Designer
Platform: In-Flight Operations Platform (Desktop Web)
Duration: 6 months
Tools: Figma / Figma AI, FigJam, Magician AI, Miro, Jira, Usertesting.com, Hotjar, ChatGPT, Midjourney/DALL-E, Adobe Analytics, Google Optimize, Confluence, Slack, Microsoft Teams.
United Airlines’ legacy dispatcher platform was built decades ago in ASCII code, forcing dispatchers to navigate dense, outdated interfaces during critical flight operations. My challenge was to design a modern, intuitive platform that supported real-time decision-making while balancing FAA compliance, operational safety, and dispatcher efficiency.
The goal was clear: empower dispatchers with clarity under pressure. By reimagining flight planning, weather visualization, and alerting workflows, I created a dispatcher console that reduced cognitive load, minimized risk, and supported United’s mission of delivering safe, on-time flights.
Empathize – Understanding Dispatchers Under Pressure
To design for flight dispatchers, I had to understand their world. I conducted interviews with Chief Dispatchers and shadowed teams inside United’s Operations Center. Their stories revealed the constant balancing act between safety, efficiency, and regulation.
I mapped dispatcher personas, capturing their goals, frustrations, and daily workflows. Quotes like “I need weather updates instantly, not buried in menus” and “One mistake impacts hundreds of lives” drove empathy throughout the design process. These insights grounded the work in human-centered design, ensuring every decision put dispatcher needs first.
Research – Learning from Aviation and Beyond
With empathy in place, I turned to research. I studied existing dispatcher workflows, FAA compliance requirements, and industry tools used by other major airlines. I also benchmarked outside industries where real-time decision-making is critical—finance, logistics, and emergency response.
The research revealed clear gaps: fragmented weather systems, inconsistent alerting protocols, and redundant manual inputs. By synthesizing findings across aviation and adjacent domains, I identified opportunities to unify data, streamline critical actions, and design an interface that dispatchers could trust in high-pressure moments.
Analysis & Planning – Turning Insights into Strategy
After gathering research and dispatcher insights, I clustered findings into themes using affinity mapping. Patterns emerged around weather visualization, alert prioritization, and the overwhelming density of legacy systems. These became the foundation for defining opportunity areas.
I partnered with operations managers and FAA compliance leads to plan a phased roadmap. Together, we prioritized safety-critical flows, mapped dispatcher journeys, and set milestones for iterative releases. This planning ensured the redesign balanced regulatory rigor with the dispatcher’s need for clarity, speed, and control.
Wireframing – Sketching the Flight Plan
I translated dispatcher insights into low-fidelity wireframes that mapped out dashboards, weather overlays, and alert hierarchies. Working in grayscale allowed me to focus on structure and flow without distraction.
Wireframes became the blueprint for simplifying critical tasks: tracking flights, rerouting around weather, and communicating with crews. Sharing these early sketches with dispatchers and operations managers sparked invaluable feedback, ensuring the layouts aligned with real-world workflows before we moved into high-fidelity design.
Design Systems – Building an Aviation - Ready UI Kit
To scale the dispatcher platform, I built a dedicated design system rooted in clarity and resilience. Typography, iconography, and color tokens were tuned for legibility under pressure—whether on large wall displays or laptop dashboards.
Reusable components—alerts, flight cards, weather modules—ensured consistency across workflows. By codifying these patterns, engineers could ship faster, while dispatchers benefited from a unified, intuitive interface. The system became a living toolkit, adaptable to evolving FAA requirements and future United operations.
Design – The Interface Takes Off
With the system foundation in place, I translated wireframes into high-fidelity designs. Every pixel reinforced clarity—large typography for critical data, bold color states for alerts, and simplified iconography for fast recognition.
I designed dispatcher dashboards that consolidated weather, flight status, and crew communications into one cohesive view. Visual hierarchy guided focus to what mattered most: safety and timing. The result was a mission-critical interface that gave dispatchers confidence, speed, and control in high-pressure situations.
Prototyping – Simulating Critical Scenarios
I built interactive Figma prototypes that simulated dispatcher workflows—rerouting flights, responding to severe weather, and handling FAA alerts. These clickable flows allowed stakeholders to experience the system as dispatchers would, under real-world conditions.
Prototyping uncovered friction points early, such as unclear alert hierarchy and redundant data entry. Iterating quickly within Figma let me refine layouts and interactions before costly development began. These simulations gave dispatchers confidence that the platform could keep pace with the urgency of live operations.
Testing – Validating in the Ops Environment
I conducted moderated usability sessions with dispatchers inside United’s Operations Center, observing how they navigated real flight scenarios in the prototype. Running simulations of weather reroutes and crew alerts revealed where designs succeeded and where confusion still lingered.
Dispatcher feedback was direct and invaluable—“This alert needs to be louder”, “I can’t lose sight of weather overlays”. Combining qualitative insights with performance metrics helped refine the interface for clarity, speed, and reliability. Testing in the authentic operational environment ensured the platform could perform under real-world pressure.
Launch – All Systems Go
The redesigned dispatcher platform was launched in phases to minimize risk and build confidence. We throttled the rollout, starting with a small group of dispatchers before scaling across United’s Operations Center.
This measured approach allowed us to validate stability, monitor performance, and incorporate dispatcher feedback in real time. As adoption grew toward 100%, dispatchers reported improved clarity, faster decision-making, and reduced cognitive load—critical wins in a high-stakes operational environment where every second counts.
Iteration - Refining After Launch
After launch, I worked closely with dispatchers to refine the platform based on live usage. Feedback highlighted evolving needs—richer weather layers, customizable alerts, and faster crew communication tools.
Through ongoing iteration cycles, I simplified data-heavy screens, optimized performance for large wall displays, and ensured compliance kept pace with FAA updates. Iteration wasn’t an afterthought; it was a continuous partnership with dispatchers to keep the platform resilient, intuitive, and future-ready.
