Southwest Airlines | Flight Tracking System

Company Southwest Airlines | Industry Aviation | Platform Web App

Overview

Ops Suite focuses on replacing Southwest Integrated Flight Tracker(SWIFT), a 20+-year-old software system consisting of many different applications that the operations team in the Network Operations Control (NOC) uses daily. SWIFT is a robust set of tools that allows users to complete their jobs promptly and keep Southwest operations moving smoothly. However, the long-term goal is to transfer most of the functionality from SWIFT to OpsSuite. In addition to SWIFT, there are various other apps, websites, Excel documents, and more that people use daily to complete their jobs.

Role

Product Designer | Product Manager

Contributions

Current Experience

Aircraft Schedule

Recover Optimizer

What If Panel

Turn Schedule

Turn Details

Turn Aircraft Line

Turn Timeline

Gate Management

Gate Detail

Station Settings

Goals

Replace the current app to improve scalability across the suite of products.
Operate on an integrated platform with a common user interface that bridges user groups rather than silo roles by function.
Use real-time data and continuous feedback loops to ensure the correct data is in the right place to encourage data-driven decision-making.
Enable collaboration and communication between user groups, facilitating cross-functional decisions.
Support management, by exception, alerts users to issues that need attention and provides recommended solutions, allowing them to focus their time away from “task work.”

Behind the Scenes | Creating the app from end-end

The History: What steps can we take to enhance this 25-year-old bundle of Joy?

Process Overview

Notes, observations, and quotes were recorded and printed on sticky notes for collective analysis. Similar sticky notes are assigned “I” statements and summarized into broader “We” or theme statements. These summaries were then utilized to identify opportunities for improvement and enhancements.

Outputs of analysis include but are not limited to:

UX themes and principals
Journey maps and consolidated workflows
Personas

Research

Stakeholder interviews
User observations
Workshop facilitation
Defining user objectives and needs
Developing user personas
Uncovering obstacles in the existing user experience
Evaluating low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes based on feedback

User Observations

Observing the Superintendents of Dispatch (SODs) perform their daily tasks from the Network Operations Center (NOC).

Through direct observation of the SODs, I was able to uncover their needs, motivations, and aspirations. By observing the users in their natural environments, I was able to:

Understand how the SODs approach tasks
Identify missing or redundant features
Discover unknown pain points
Understand users' mindsets
Recognize environmental factors that may impact user experiences

Workshops

Conducted interactive workshops to facilitate collaborative sessions with users, enabling them to solve problems and make progress throughout the design process.

Card Sorting

Insights and Resolutions

Current Pain Points

Data distributed among various applications and channels
Distrust leading to further investigation and workflow
Manual oversight and reactive issue resolution
Unintuitive user interfaces with concealed actions and interactions
Various methods to achieve the same task with inconsistent processes
Numerous system workarounds required

Future Pain Points

Consistency
- Establish user experience patterns
Discoverability
- Favors recognition over recall
Minimalist Design
- Offer only essential information
Use Efficiency
- Account for both novice and expert users

Themes & Opportunities

Exception Driven Alerting
Increase Data Integrity
Reduce Redundancy in Processes
User Personalization
Role-Based Configuration
Visibility & Accessibility
Rapid Access to Information
Improved Data Visualization

Personas

Based on user research, personas were created to align strategy and goals with the various users of the application.

User insights | The Journey

Opportunities

Alerts & Notification Center

Exception led through subscription, severity and time to impact

Global Communication

Transformation of notes and informational Flight Information Management System(FIMS)

Landing Page & Network Views

Widget-based dashboard with new ways to look at the health of the network

Global Search

Quick access to information

Global Baker Integration

Quick access to optimizer from any location within OpsSuite

All-in-One Detail View

Rapid Prototyping

I used sketching, Balsamiq, and Sketch App to create prototypes to test early and often.

Visual Design

The Design System

The Component Library

Worked with Development to build React Component Library, including weekly design reviews and sign-off.

Accessibility

Ensure the Component Library supports accessible development by providing semantically correct components, each with appropriate ARIA markup, that users of assistive technologies can identify correctly.

Life after Deployment - Did we get it right?

I conducted NPS surveys to gather valuable user feedback, which I found in one of our features.

Enhancements: Workshop with a new set of SMEs

The goal was to create a more visual interface to help users quickly scan data and make decisions more efficiently.

Scenario Matrix: We refined essential data and eliminated the unnecessary.

REDESIGN AND DELIVERY

I condensed the data into charts, which enabled users to:

Compare different scenarios and solutions
Save or dislike solutions
Share solutions with other users
Commit solutions to the optimizer

As a Product manager, I had the opportunity to apply my product management skills during a reorganization. I collaborated with the development teams to outline tasks, deadlines, and features for the upcoming program increments.