BigSky 2.0
Boeing — Aircraft Planning Tool Redesign
- The product
- Aircraft planning tool for Boeing Sales Analysts to schedule manufacturing timelines
- My role
- Solo UX Designer — research, IA, wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and user testing
- Timeline
- Phased quarterly releases · Phase 1 shipped Jun–Aug 2020
- Team
- Designer, PM, Architect, SME, Dev team
The context
Planning 40,000 aircraft — one brittle screen at a time
BigSky is how Boeing Sales Analysts plan every aircraft order. When a new order comes in, an analyst creates a plan with aircraft specifications, delivery deadlines, circuit codes, and model details — then fires that plan to downstream manufacturing teams. Get it wrong, and a factory floor stalls.
The problem: the tool had grown for years with no design input. The homepage was overloaded with redundant information, key actions required navigating to multiple places, and a 737 plan with hundreds of entries would freeze the browser entirely. Eric Onosko — a BigSky veteran who'd planned over 40,000 aircraft — still had to keep an Excel sheet running alongside it.
Meet the user
Eric Onosko — a BigSky veteran who deserved a better tool
Eric is a Boeing 737 Program Planning Analyst. He's been on the system for 10 years, planned over 40,000 aircraft, and is the go-to for his entire program. Moderately tech-literate, methodical, and deeply frustrated by a tool that made simple tasks unnecessarily hard.
"The aircraft plans are too volatile. We change a lot of sequence at different points and create Excel reports every end of day." That one quote summarised everything that needed to change.
User research
Five analysts, five programs, one consistent picture
- 01
5 interviews — one per aircraft program
I spoke to analysts from Boeing 737, 747, 787, and NMA programs. Each session was 30–45 minutes on Webex — structured around a workflow walkthrough, a questionnaire, and a validation summary. I also ran a separate stakeholder interview with the BigSky Product Head to align on business goals and release expectations.
- 02
"I cannot know which plan was published to which system"
There was no dashboard, no recent-activity view, no visibility into what was pushed to downstream systems and when. Analysts were working blind after firing an order.
- 03
"When I first logged in, I could not find the menus"
Navigation was hidden. New analysts struggled to orient themselves. Even experienced users worked around confusing UI patterns instead of through them.
- 04
"My team spends 40 minutes just on a delivery date update"
Delivery dates and circuit codes had to be updated in multiple disconnected places. A single change cascaded into manual effort across several screens — and there was no bulk update mechanism.
Research synthesis
What the research pointed to
- 01
Functional pain points
Homepage overloaded with redundant information; no wildcard scenario search; scenario locks blocking parallel work; delivery dates and circuit codes requiring multi-place edits; no bulk line-number update mechanism.
- 02
Cosmetic and UX issues
Hidden navigation menu; missing user confirmations on key dialogs; no descriptive error messages; inconsistent update and refire behaviour; no success feedback (snack bars) after operations.
- 03
Stakeholder priorities
"I want BigSky to be a single pane of glass." The Product Head wanted a simplified, robust UI that could absorb future integrations — including a planned Integrated Skyline feature connecting order data directly into BigSky.
How I solved it
From problem to high-fidelity in five phases
- 01
User & stakeholder interviews
5 user interviews + 1 stakeholder session. Structured around workflow walkthroughs and questionnaires.
- 02
Insight mapping
Synthesised pain points into functional issues, cosmetic issues, and a new feature backlog.
- 03
Information architecture
Restructured the IA into Scenarios → Versions → Reports → Data Tables — matching how analysts actually think about their work.
- 04
Low-fi sketches
Validated the new IA with the same 5 research participants before pushing any pixels.
- 05
High-fidelity designs
Delivered final screens in Sketch following Boeing's design system — Helvetica Neue, Boeing colour palette, enterprise component set.
- 06
User testing & handoff
3 key task flows tested with the original research cohort. I started design 2–3 sprints ahead of dev and stayed involved until final delivery.
Design decisions
Three answers to three user problems
- 01
Dashboard view for recent activity
Solved "I cannot know what was published recently." The new home screen surfaced the most recently fired plans, their downstream destinations, and status — front and centre.
- 02
Load only active scenarios
Solved "I always work on this month's plans." The default view filtered to active scenarios and versions, eliminating the noise of historical data that slowed down the interface.
- 03
Simplified navigation
Solved "I could not find the menus." Exposed navigation as a persistent sidebar — making every section reachable in one step, with clear labelling and a logical hierarchy.
“Phew! This straightaway reduces my 4 hours of manual effort in a day.”
