Case Study
Unifying the Airline Agent Workflow
Company
AKQA
Role
Lead UX Designer
Type
Service Design, Desktop
Year
2022
The Brief
Delta engaged AKQA to reduce time spent per customer call. Specialists were navigating multiple tools mid-conversation, slowing resolution times.
In the Field
I traveled to the Dallas hub to observe specialists on live calls. I mapped every action — tool switches, repeated lookups, total steps — and turned it into a task analysis the team could act on.
Laying the Groundwork
Armed with the task analysis, I facilitated a UX Strategy Blueprint session — translating what we observed in Dallas into goals the full team could design toward. Mapping user needs against business goals meant that when it came time to choose a direction, the Blueprint pointed the way.
Two Directions
The task analysis had a clear focal point: removing passengers from a flight was the task specialists repeated most, and it required leaving their primary workflow entirely. Two directions emerged for how to solve it. “Single” surfaced everything at once. “Flo” used contextual panels — surfacing the right information at the right moment in a call. Both had merit, but would either solve the problem the way specialists needed?
Specialists Set Us Straight
We brought both directions back to specialists. Their feedback was direct: a busy screen wasn’t the issue — irrelevant information at the wrong moment was. Flo was the right call. We refined it around what they told us.
One Tool, One Flow — interaction demo
The Result
Reduced steps to access Miles data from five to one
Eliminated the most common repeated task: checking flight details