CONTEXT
Desktop web app · Expert user workflows · Digital transformation
ROLE
Lead designer
Navigator: Designing for when things go wrong
Led the design strategy that broke a four-year product stalemate, driving adoption for 7,000 global reservation agents
Built and launched Irregular Operations flows into Navigator, reducing reliance on legacy tools during disruptions
Secured funding for a foundational itinerary card redesign funding after four years of resistance
Increased Navigator usage 5-25% across agent locations globally
When things went wrong, a delayed flight, a missed connection, a stranded passenger, United Airlines reservation agents didn't use Navigator.
They went back to EZR, a 20-year-old tool that was expensive to maintain and painful to use.
Navigator had been live for years, but when it mattered most, agents didn't trust it.
THE PROBLEM
What the research revealed
Research consistently surfaced the same pain points. The itinerary card was difficult to scan and slowed agents down during high-pressure scenarios.
The core workflow hadn't evolved. New capabilities were added, but the primary workspace remained unchanged.
Agents created workarounds. During IRROPS, agents abandoned Navigator and returned to EZR.
EZR
Navigator
When I joined, I dug into prior research and found something buried. The large itinerary card had always been part of the vision. It had been scoped out as an MVP decision and never revisited.
I didn't pitch the itinerary card redesign directly. Stakeholders were focused on feature velocity and I hadn't yet earned the credibility to reframe the entire product strategy.
Instead, I identified IRROPS as the wedge. It was a high priority epic, and was an undeniable, high-stakes gap that I knew would require a larger, more flexible itinerary card to solve properly.
My approach was to build trust with our stakeholders, treat them as valued partners, and let the work make the argument. If I could prove Navigator's ability to handle the worst moments, the case for the larger itinerary redesign would make itself.
THE IRROPS FEATURE
Before this feature, every IRROPS event meant switching back to EZR. I designed for three scenarios: protecting passengers via suggested flights, reshopping at the line of flight level, and reshopping at the segment level.
EZR allowed agents to reshop individual flight segments, Navigator didn't. For tenured agents, that missing flexibility was a dealbreaker.
Key design decisions
A. Show the full picture first.
Flight segments were hidden in an accordion. Showing the full line of flight helped agents assess disruptions before making a rebooking decision.
B. Bypass the search setup.
Suggested flights removed unnecessary rebooking steps, helping agents act faster when every second mattered.
C. Surface the disruption type immediately.
Controllable versus uncontrollable disruptions determined which policies agents could apply. Surfacing that information reduced the risk of
making the wrong offer.
D. Make status visible and dynamic.
Agents needed continuous awareness as disruptions evolved. A persistent status indicator kept critical information visible throughout the workflow.
Following the release, Navigator usage increased 5 to 25% across agent locations globally.
THE UNLOCK
Stakeholders had watched agents navigate complex disruptions without leaving Navigator for the first time. The use case was no longer theoretical.
The large itinerary card, deferred for four years, finally was funded.
It wasn't a hard sell. It didn't need to be.
Content testing: three itinerary variants tested with agents.
What agents told us
Less upfront is more
Agents preferred basic data at the surface level for faster scanning, with details available on demand.
Keep relevant data proximal
Testing clarified which data belonged at the first level versus second, and how to group it logically.
THE OUTCOME
And when agents trusted the tool, they stayed in it.
The itinerary redesign followed, and when it shipped agents noticed immediately. For the first time, agents felt like the tool was designed for them. Feedback came through the company-wide newsletter:
"I like that there are more details under each coupon, like the terminal, and I don't have to click twice to see it."
"I like how big it is and where the seats and upgrade tools are located."
These weren't compliments about aesthetics, they were confirmation that specific design decisions landed.
Drop off rates at flight search results remained high though, pointing to a flexibility gap that EZR had that Navigator did not. Agents who needed to reissue tickets were still hitting a wall. That became the next problem I owned.
WHAT I LEARNED
They're the ones underneath it: deferred decisions, organizational resistance, technical constraints inherited from choices made before I arrived.
I can't force those problems open. I earn the right to fix them by proving i understand the domain, building trust with the people who control the roadmap, and finding the use cases that make the argument undeniable.
IRROPS was that use case. The itinerary card was the real problem. And the agents who finally stopped going back to EZR were the proof.