HEADER GOES HERE
ROLE & TEAM
Principal Designer on a team with
a PM and 2 iOS Devs at Schedaero
SUMMARY
We replaced our outdated framework by building a modern design system made in SwiftUI, giving us freedom, consistency, and landscape rotation.
Problem Statement
The research showed that our customers needed to use their device in landscape mode, but our existing implementation of UIKit was going to make that difficult to rig up. We also wanted to be able to add gesture functionality, but UIKit didn’t support them. All the major feature improvements we had planned were blocked by this obsolete framework. My team decided that a full replacement, though costly upfront, would pay us back with future-proofed features and the latest OS functionality.
Research + Discovery
Discovery started when we noticed app-store reviews that requested landscape mode
In-app surveys received consistently low scores and comments that indicated they were frustrated about not being able to use the app with an external keyboard case.
In-person tours of customer cockpits revealed the environment they’re working in — whether strapped to a kneeboard or attached directly to the yoke (the steering wheel), the mounts were often set up for a landscape orientation
Iterations & Ideations
I wanted to make use of the ipad’s increased screen real-estate by implementing a full calendar — something that would be quicker to navigate over large time stretches.
We were also exploring multi-pilot interfaces for a Chief Pilot who was managing multiple people on the go, and knew that a bird’s eye view of their calendar would help them make decisions. While this didn’t end up making it into our first iteration, showing a prototype with it got a unanimous “yay!” from 7/10 chief pilots we talked to.
Colors & Components (with variants)
I had already developed a few SwiftUI patterns by overhauling just one of our forms in a previous project. The developers were able to take those patterns and apply them to other forms in the app. But the pages that needed the biggest help were the main schedule page. There was still a clear question about how to display the synced data, and how much synced data did we need?
Mid-Project Issue: iOS18
The team had been mid-development when QA started reporting curious bugs about the top nav. This is how we discovered that the iOS 18 beta introduced a new tab bar specifically for
Outcomes & Impact
Something great that happened here.