Sr. UX designer

Sr. UX designer

Preorder in flight meals

Project background

United Airlines wanted to enhance the passenger experience by introducing a pre-order meal service to reduce food waste, streamline inflight dining, and improve customer satisfaction. Feedback from passengers highlighted frustration with not always receiving their preferred meals during flights, signaling the need for a more reliable system.

My role & task

I led the end-to-end design of the Preorder feature across both web and mobile platforms, enhancing meal selection and enabling contactless snack payments. My role involved close collaboration not only with internal business, digital, and development teams but also with external partners, including United Innovation, Catering, and Flight Operations teams. Together, we ensured seamless alignment across stakeholders to deliver a user-friendly, high-impact product.

INCREASED ADOPTION

INCREASED ADOPTION

35%

35%

This helped United better forecast meal demand.

This helped United better forecast meal demand.

35%

INCREASED SALES

INCREASED SALES

5%

5%

Driven by upselling during the meal selection process.

Driven by upselling during the meal selection process.

5%

DECREASE IN WASTED MEALS

DECREASE IN WASTED MEALS

20%

20%

Supports sustainability efforts allowing for food to be prepared ahead.

Supports sustainability efforts allowing for food to be prepared ahead.

20%


Result

Key outcomes & impact

Personalized journeys

  • Delivered pre-selection invitations for meals and beverages, giving passengers control and boosting engagement.

  • Ensured first-choice availability for upper cabin passengers, enhancing satisfaction.

Streamlined inflight service

  • Scheduled meal delivery to create a smooth, predictable dining experience.

  • Introduced contactless payments for snacks, simplifying transactions in economy.

Building trust through safety

  • Reduced touchpoints with contactless payments to protect both passengers and crew during COVID-19 recovery.

Data-driven efficiency

  • Leveraged analytics to forecast demand and optimize inventory, ensuring accurate offerings.

  • Minimize food waste by capturing preferences upfront, supporting sustainability.

Notifications

Preorder landing

Personalized journeys

  • Delivered pre-selection invitations for meals and beverages, giving passengers control and boosting engagement.

  • Ensured first-choice availability for upper cabin passengers, enhancing satisfaction.

Streamlined inflight service

  • Scheduled meal delivery to create a smooth, predictable dining experience.

  • Introduced contactless payments for snacks, simplifying transactions in economy.

Building trust through safety

  • Reduced touchpoints with contactless payments to protect both passengers and crew during COVID-19 recovery.

Data-driven efficiency

  • Leveraged analytics to forecast demand and optimize inventory, ensuring accurate offerings.

  • Minimize food waste by capturing preferences upfront, supporting sustainability.

  • Leveraged analytics to forecast demand and optimize inventory, ensuring accurate offerings.

  • Minimize food waste by capturing preferences upfront, supporting sustainability.

Notifications

Preorder landing

Key outcomes & impact

Personalized journeys

  • Delivered pre-selection invitations for meals and beverages, giving passengers control and boosting engagement.

  • Ensured first-choice availability for upper cabin passengers, enhancing satisfaction.

Streamlined inflight service

  • Scheduled meal delivery to create a smooth, predictable dining experience.

  • Introduced contactless payments for snacks, simplifying transactions in economy.

Building trust through safety

  • Reduced touchpoints with contactless payments to protect both passengers and crew during COVID-19 recovery.

Data-driven efficiency

  • Leveraged analytics to forecast demand and optimize inventory, ensuring accurate offerings.

  • Minimize food waste by capturing preferences upfront, supporting sustainability.

Notifications

Preorder landing

Accessibility

At United, accessibility is a core value. For the design team, this means not only ensuring that all colors meet AA contrast standards but also requiring every designer to document the semantic structure for each new page or project. This practice supports users who rely on screen readers, ensuring that content is presented in a logical and meaningful way. It also accounts for scenarios where text or images may be interpreted differently by visual readers versus assistive technologies.

Accessibility

What's next?

In our initial launch, some key features were deferred due to timing and technical constraints. Currently, we are focused on implementing further enhancements that respond directly to user needs, such as:

  • Editing meal selections to allow for greater flexibility

  • Requesting special meals to cater to dietary requirements

  • Indicating a preference to forgo meals onboard for a more personalized experience

These enhancements reflect our commitment to user-centered design and our ongoing efforts to refine the product based on real-world insights.

What's next?

Additional Highlights

At United, not every idea stemmed from major business initiatives—some started as simple concepts from the design team. I often brought these ideas to the test-and-learn team to explore their potential impact. Here are two examples of A/B tests I proposed that delivered positive results and were quickly implemented.

A/B Testing: Ancillary Bundles

To increase the appeal of ancillary bundle offers, I introduced icons to visually enhance the bundle selection interface. The test resulted in a 1.7% increase in bundle sales, which, while seemingly small, represents a significant revenue boost for a billion-dollar organization like United Airlines

A/B Testing: Sustainability Initiatives

In preparation for potential legislation requiring carbon emissions disclosures on flights, I led an A/B test to assess the impact of displaying carbon emissions data and labeling the "Greenest Flight" option within the main booking path. The goal was to ensure sales wouldn’t decline by adding this information. To our surprise, not only did sales remain steady, but 2% of users chose the greenest flight, even when it was more expensive than other options. This highlighted an unexpected consumer preference for sustainable travel, providing valuable insights for future initiatives.


Result

Let's connect

Let's connect

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