Overview

United Airline's crew scheduling system was functional but rigid, making it difficult for pilots to trade trips efficiently. The “Trip Trade” initiative aimed to create an internal marketplace where pilots could view, request, and swap flight assignments with real-time scheduling updates and union compliance — all in one seamless experience.

The Challenge

• Manual + Inefficient Process: Pilots relied on phone calls, outdated portals, or third-party forums to arrange trades. This led to miscommunications, missed opportunities, and scheduling conflicts.
• Limited Mobile Support: Many pilots operate on-the-go, but existing tools were desktop-centric. There was a need for a mobile-first solution that worked seamlessly across devices.
• Compliance Complexity: Trades had to comply with FAA rest regulations, union agreements, and operational needs. The system needed to automate these checks to prevent invalid trades.
• Time Sensitivity: Available trips often disappeared quickly, leading to frustration.

My Role & Contributions

To tackle these challenges, I collaborated closely with 1 UX Lead, 2 UX researchers, product managers, developers, and union representatives. We adopted a user-centered design approach, conducting extensive research with over 40 pilots through interviews, surveys, and usability testing.

• Conducted stakeholder interviews to understand business goals and technical constraints.
• Led end-to-end UX: Discovery, IA, Wireframes, Prototypes, Design System integration, and Dev Handoff.
• Created responsive wireframes, interactive prototypes, and high-fidelity designs using Figma.
• Facilitated workshops with union reps, schedulers, and pilots to map the trip trade journey.

Scoping

Stakeholder interviews and competitive analysis uncovered pain points and mapped the pilot trip trade journey. User testing highlighted the need for real-time availability, clear trade statuses, and mobile access. Key insights included:

Vision

We envisioned a mobile-first app that served as a centralized hub for trip trading—inspired by Amazon's checkout process because of the ubiquitous nature of its user experience. Key features included a dynamic marketplace, real-time notifications, AI-powered trade suggestions, and compliance automation to ensure all trades met regulatory and union standards.

Executing the Vision

Using a one week design sprint, we rapidly ideated and prototyped key flows. Low-fidelity wireframes were created to map out user journeys, followed by high-fidelity interactive prototypes in Figma. We prioritized features based on user feedback and technical feasibility, focusing on core functionalities like trip browsing, trade request conflicts, and notifications.

Solution

The final design featured an intuitive interface with a clean layout, easy navigation, and clear trade statuses. Pilots could quickly browse available trips, filter by criteria, and request trades with just a few taps. Real-time notifications kept users informed of trade updates, while AI suggestions helped pilots find optimal matches based on their preferences and schedules.

Results

Post-launch metrics showed a 300% increase in trip trades within the first three months. User satisfaction scores improved significantly, with pilots praising the app's ease of use and efficiency. The mobile-first design allowed pilots to manage trades on-the-go, leading to higher engagement and reduced scheduling conflicts. Overall, the Trip Trade app transformed United's crew scheduling process, making it more flexible, efficient, and user-friendly.

Overview

City National Bank's high-net-worth clients often manage 15–20+ accounts across personal, business, and trust holdings. The legacy Account Summary presented these in a flat, unorganized list, creating cognitive overload, navigation friction, and no way to personalize the experience.

I led the redesign of the Account Summary, introducing pinning, hiding, reordering, grouping, and renaming—validated through competitor audits, concept testing, and multi-round usability studies.

Outcome: 43% faster navigation, +9 NPS lift, and significant increase in perceived control & satisfaction.

Problem

HNW clients needed a clearer, more intuitive way to organize their portfolios. The previous design made it difficult to quickly locate priority accounts, reduce clutter from lesser-used or seasonal accounts, and create a mental model aligned with how they manage wealth across entities.

The challenge: Deliver a flexible, user-controlled information architecture without compromising clarity, compliance, or cross-platform scalability.

Objectives

Project Goal: Create an intuitive Account Summary that helps clients find their most important account information quickly and confidently.

Research Goal: Understand user expectations for customization and evaluate the usability of proposed interactions across web and mobile.

Timeline (12 weeks)

Weeks 1–4 — Design Exploration + Research Planning: Competitive analysis, design ideation, interaction models, hypothesis framing

Weeks 5–8 —Concept Testing with CNB Clients: Moderated interviews to validate mental models and evaluate early prototypes

Weeks 9–12 — Iteration, Coded Prototyping & Usability Testing: Partnered with Design System team to build coded prototypes and run unmoderated task-based tests; finalized responsive designs

Persona

Danielle Simmons

Entertainment Attorney, 48

Manages 20+ accounts spanning personal, trust, and business entities.

Needs

• Prioritize her top 5–6 accounts
• Group seasonal or less-frequent accounts
• Minimize cognitive load upon login

Frustrations

• Long, unorganized lists
• No grouping or shortcuts
• Confusing combined balances

This persona guided personalization scenarios and prioritization logic.

Research

1. Secondary Research — Competitor Audit
Date: May 29, 2024
Platforms Reviewed: 7 major banking & fintech competitors
Goal: Understand leading patterns for personalization, grouping, and multi-account organization

Highlighted features are available in the final CNO Account Customization design.

2. Concept Testing — Moderated Interviews
Dates: June 25–28, 2024
Participants: 8 CNB clients with 20+ accounts
Goal: Test early customization models (pinning, grouping, renaming) and validate mental models

3. Unmoderated Task-Based Usability Testing
Dates: July 31–August 2, 2024
Participants: 25 digital clients with 15+ accounts
Goal: Evaluate ability to pin/unpin, hide/reveal, reorder, and interpret combined balance rules

Results directly shaped micro-interactions and responsive patterns.

Design

The final design introduced a flexible, user-controlled system that allowed clients to customize their Account Summary view. Key features included pinning priority accounts to the top, hiding seasonal or infrequent accounts, custom reordering via drag-and-drop, grouping accounts by entity or purpose, and renaming accounts for clarity.

High-fidelity prototypes were developed for both web and mobile platforms, ensuring a consistent experience across devices while respecting the unique constraints and opportunities of each platform.

Impact

Measurable Outcomes:

• 43% reduction in time to find a target account
• +9 increase in NPS for digital experience
• Higher completion rates for customization tasks
• Increased confidence navigating complex multi-entity portfolios

Team & Collaboration

I partnered closely with UX Research for moderated and unmoderated studies, worked with the Design System team to build coded prototypes for richer, realistic testing, and coordinated with Product & Engineering to align on feasibility, governance, and rollout strategy. We leveraged design tokens and responsive rules for cross-platform scalability.

Reflection & Learnings

Two rounds of research—concept testing and usability testing—ensured that we both built the right thing and built it right. Using coded prototypes generated far more accurate behavioral insights than static Figma prototypes. Cross-disciplinary alignment early (Design System + Engineering) allowed smoother handoff and accelerated adoption into the Roxbury Design System.

Key Takeaways

• Personalization is critical for high-net-worth portfolio management
• Small interaction details (drag-handles, animations, tooltips) influenced task success significantly
• Clients strongly valued feeling "in control" of their financial landscape
• This redesign established the foundation for future personalization features across CNB's digital suite

Overview

As UX Lead for Research & Design, I led a forward-looking product vision initiative for EY's Global Tax Platform (GTP). This "concept car" project explored what GTP could become if we removed current technical constraints and design-system limitations—prioritizing clarity, personalization, and intelligent automation over incremental improvements.

Over 4 sprints, we partnered with Product Management to create a future-state vision that addressed systemic workflow pain points for both EY professionals and client users. While conceptual, this work directly influenced roadmap discussions and future feature development.

Vision Impact (Conceptual, Research-Informed)

• Reduced cognitive load by simplifying navigation and surfacing "what matters now"
• Increased engagement efficiency by reducing context switching across tools
• Enhanced adoption readiness through guided onboarding and in-product assistance
• Established a north-star UX model used to evaluate future GTP investments

The Challenge

GTP supports complex, global tax engagements—but research revealed that the experience had become fragmented across workflows and external tools, difficult to navigate for both internal EY users and clients, under-personalized forcing users into generic experiences, and manual and inefficient especially during peak tax season.

Product Management asked the UX team to step back from requirements and explore a more fundamental question: If we were designing GTP today—with no legacy constraints—what should it be?

UX Objectives

• Create a user-friendly, visually cohesive platform
• Enable personalization by role, engagement, and region
• Surface critical work and insights at the right time
• Explore how AI and automation could meaningfully reduce effort
• Provide a clear vision to guide long-term product strategy

Discovery & Exploration

Strategic Discovery & Personas: We partnered with PMs, engagement managers, and tax professionals to understand platform-level challenges across regions and services.

Primary Personas:

Competitive Analysis & Pattern Research

We analyzed enterprise SaaS platforms beyond tax to identify modern patterns in personalized dashboards, task-first navigation, embedded collaboration, and AI-assisted workflows.

Key Insight: Users don't want more features — they want better orchestration of the work they already do.

Ideation & Concept Development

Using Miro, we translated research themes into opportunity areas and rapidly explored concepts such as personalized navigation and task-centric dashboards, embedded collaboration and communication, automation via AI-driven assistance, and platform rebranding to signal a modern, intelligent system.

Ideation Impact (Projected):
• Reduced time to locate key tasks by surfacing work contextually
• Decreased tool switching by consolidating workflows in one workspace
• Increased user confidence through clearer system feedback and guidance

Vision Concepts

Personalized Workspace: A customizable workspace surfaces upcoming tasks and deliverables, engagement-specific insights, and curated tax news relevant to country and service.

Modern Onboarding & In-Product Guidance: We designed a three-step onboarding flow where users configure their workspace by engagement. WalkMe-style guidance then introduces new features contextually.

Navigation & Global Filters: A reimagined navigation model prioritizes active work, supported by global filters that allow users to pivot without losing context.

Contacts & Collaboration: Contacts were redesigned to integrate directly with Microsoft Teams, enabling seamless communication between clients and engagement teams from within GTP.

Excel-Native Deliverables: We explored embedding Excel directly into the Deliverables workspace, eliminating the need for repetitive downloading and uploading.

AI Assistant ("Marvin")

We extended an existing ServiceNow Virtual Agent initiative by envisioning Marvin, an AI assistant with natural language conversations, contextual awareness of engagements and regions, memory of prior interactions, and ML-driven recommendations.

Projected Impact: Reduced time spent searching for answers, increased decision confidence, and AI positioned as a workflow partner, not just support.

Gamification (Future Exploration)

As a future-facing concept, we explored gamification tied to EY's existing Bravo Awards, automatically rewarding completed filings and milestones to increase motivation during peak tax season and reinforce positive behaviors.

Outcome & Influence

Platform-Level Impact:

• Influenced future GTP roadmap discussions
• Provided leadership with a clear UX north star
• Shifted conversations from feature requests to experience systems
• Validated the role of AI, personalization, and orchestration in enterprise tax platforms

Design Leadership Takeaway: Even as a conceptual initiative, this work demonstrated how vision-led design can align stakeholders, inspire teams, and materially shape long-term product direction.

Project Brief

TaskMaster Pro is a project management tool designed for creative teams. The challenge was to create a powerful dashboard that displays complex data without overwhelming users.

Outcome

The platform achieved 10,000+ active teams in the first 6 months. User productivity increased by 65%, and the intuitive dashboard reduced onboarding time from 2 hours to 15 minutes.

Project Summary

FitTrack is a comprehensive fitness app that integrates with wearable devices to provide personalized workout recommendations and health insights. The app uses machine learning to adapt coaching based on user progress.

Design Challenge

Fitness apps often overwhelm users with too much data. Our challenge was to surface the right insights at the right time while keeping the daily experience simple and motivating.

Results

FitTrack users showed 3x higher retention rates compared to competitors. The app received Apple's "App of the Day" feature and maintains a 4.9 star rating with over 1M downloads.