Offline Functionality For Pilots In Flight
ROLE & TEAM
Principal Designer on a team with
a PM and 2 iOS Devs at Schedaero
SUMMARY
We gave our pilots the ability to save a draft locally to their device, allowing them to work even while they had spotty network connection mid-flight
Problem Statement
Our app is meant to replace a completely paper workflow. By requiring an internet connection to complete a flight log, pilots had to keep their paper notes and then fill the log out afterwards, which they were likely to forget. If we could increase the number of flight logs submitted, we’d have better aircraft and pilot records.
Research + Discovery
This was the most-requested functionality for our crew app when I was hired.
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.