UNITED AIRLINES | Reimagining Airport Lobbies

Making the travel day at the airport less stressful

85%

Would get the app for the features

4+

Stakeholders' buy in; shaping roadmap

Projected to reduce stress, agent reliance and time spent in the lobby

• CONTEXT

Project Goal

Rethink the airport lobby experience (everything pre-TSA)

United wants to reduce confusion, speed up processes and help passengers move through the lobby with less reliance on staff. They are especially focused on helping infrequent travelers, who make up 70% of their customers and often feel overwhelmed when they arrive at the airport.

ROLE

Product Designer (led pre-arrival features)

Timeline

Jan 2025 - Aug 2025
8 months

Team

2 Product Designers (including me), Lobby Manager @ United, UX Researcher @ United

PLatform

United App - mobile UI, IOS Live Activities + Notification system, Self-service Kiosk

SeaTac United Lobby, 29th April

outcome

A home-to-gate guidance system and reimagined bag drop

The solution combined pre-arrival guidance, wayfinding, and a kiosk-free bag drop vision into a service design deliverable spanning the entire journey.

My ROle

I led end-to-end design, with a focus on closing the pre-arrival awareness gap

From research and testing through prototyping and handoff, I shaped key interventions: a dynamic wait time widget, journey preview, bag scan for allowance clarity, and a roadmap for just-in-time guidance.

• PROBLEM

USER NEEDS

SPEED

REASSURANCE

EASE OF USE

Interviewing at the boarding gate, I learned: the airport lobby isn’t just a checkpoint - it’s where travelers' stress peaks and emotions run highest.

“This is my first time here so I didn't know the airport, I was a little confused. I felt everybody was as confused as me…I didn't feel like things were clear, for a person who's just walking in”

P1, Infrequent Traveler

Seatac Airport

“I waited to use the kiosk, but it couldn't scan my passport. Then I had to get in line, and by the time I got to the counter, I'd missed my flight and had to rebook it again”

P4, Infrequent Traveler

Seatac Airport

Goal

How Might We

• FINAL DESIGNS

Overview

Turning Uncertainty Into Control Across the Travel Journey

End-to-end guidance system working across the entire user journey to surface the right step at the right time.

Whether its bag scan or wait times before leaving home, OR journey preview or navigation once you're arriving at the airport - this is a framework that identifies moments of stress and gaps in knowledge for an infrequent traveler and replaces it with more control, visibility and reassurance - in a way thats personalised to their specific travel situation.

End-to-end guidance system working across the entire user journey to surface the right step at the right time.

UNITED APP HOMESCREEN

Right after check-in, a new home for your trip

After check-in, boarding pass + flight details stay upfront

New Get Ready for Your Trip section appears in context

Updates dynamically with key pre-arrival actions

Helps travelers prepare early with only what’s essential

BAgScan at home

A quick scan - to avoid surprises at the gate

A notification to scan bags or review allowances

Quick, visual walkthrough guiding through the scan

System captures bag size in real time checking against carry-on rules

If size is approved, travelers are nudged to check weight next

Guidance linked to your allowance

Know what's included. Add what you need

“If it's an airport that I'm unfamiliar with, which is every airport, I feel like that would be super helpful”

P15, Infrequent traveler

Concept testing

BEFORE YOU LEAVE

Track wait times to beat the crowd

6 hrs before boarding, travelers see live + predictive wait time

Get a recommended arrival time based on real conditions

A dynamic widget updates, clearing outdated predictions

Arriving at the airport

See Your Journey Before You Got

Journey Preview lets travelers visualize their airport flow ahead of time

Breaks the day into clear steps: kiosk → bag drop → TSA → gate

Uses real photos from their specific airport for easy orientation

Helps travelers feel confident and in control before they arrive

Travelers told us they don’t just want to know where to go, but how to get there. So journey preview lets them pick from among different views - map, visual or 360

terminal navigation

From Plan in Hand to On‑Site Navigation

SEAMLESS SELF-SERVICE

A quick tap with NFC at the kiosk and a simplified user flow

• REsearch

Research Methodology

What we did

Contextual Inquiry

Contextual Inquiry (April 29th)

5-6 Airline agents

United Lobby at SeaTac

Observe the current flow, probe the experts

Walk-Up Interviews

Walk-Up Interviews (May 1st)

15 United travelers (5 Frequent/ 10 Infrequent)

4 Boarding Gates at SeaTac

Diverse user accounts captured in context

Research INsights

What we found

🔗

Click here to read the full generative research report

• Process

Ideation

Casting the net wide to find the right direction

🪜

Ideated across journey stages

💭

Focused on divergence

Design-test iterative sprints

Concepts were shaped through iterative design-test cycles, increasing in fidelity as ideas balancing user value, business impact, and technical feasibility were refined

Design Decision-making

Notable explorations and pivots: Every solution came from diverging wide, testing with travelers, and making deliberate pivots based on what resonated most

• IMPACT

Travelers knowing what to do → Reduced stress, smoother operations

Designed pre-arrival guidance projected to increase app adoption by 85%, save travelers an estimated 10-15 mins in the lobby, and boost service adoption rates by 70%

STAKEHOLDER FEEDBACK

Stakeholders saw our work as production-ready, strategically aligned, and impactful enough to influence United’s roadmap for the year ahead

“The presentation itself - really well done… the designs look already ready to take to production. Great job in the quality of both presentation and the designs themselves.”

Jason Flint

Director, Digital Delivery United Airlines

“Great job. A lot of the solutions and ideas you’ve thought through may address not only today’s problems, but tomorrow’s problems.”

Jay Ahuja

Manager, Lobby Experience

“You guys did a great job of providing a phenomenal slate of ideas. I’m very happy with this. I think we’ll use this for at least the next year in reference as we continue to build out our roadmap.”

Casey Spaargaren

Sr Manager. Airport Experience

"One of the most extensive design scope we’ve seen in the projects… big thumbs up and kudos. Your professionalism, the way you present, the way you conducted research- that was all really up there.”

Axel Roesler

Professor, Interaction Design @ UW

“The presentation itself - really well done… the designs look already ready to take to production. Great job in the quality of both presentation and the designs themselves.”

Jason Flint

Director, Digital Delivery United Airlines

• Learnings

Designing for behavior under pressure
Learned how emotional reassurance, not speed - is the biggest value-add in stressful travel spaces, and how to support behaviour change through calm, well-timed guidance.

Thinking in systems and timelines
Practiced service design across digital, physical, and operational layers balancing short-term feasibility with long-term vision through roadmap-driven decisions.
Testing as a design habit, not a milestone
Weekly design-test cycles helped us uncover blind spots early, validate direction, and stay accountable to real user needs - not just internal ideas.

Designing for behavior under pressure
Learned how emotional reassurance, not speed - is the biggest value-add in stressful travel spaces, and how to support behaviour change through calm, well-timed guidance.

Thinking in systems and timelines
Practiced service design across digital, physical, and operational layers balancing short-term feasibility with long-term vision through roadmap-driven decisions.
Testing as a design habit, not a milestone
Weekly design-test cycles helped us uncover blind spots early, validate direction, and stay accountable to real user needs - not just internal ideas.