Desktop Application
B2B
UX/UI
Design Systems
UI Redesign

Satellite Flight Plan Assembler

ISISPACE Group

Redesigning and creating a user-centric interface of an existing desktop application to help the satellite operators work more efficiently and avoid making mistakes when creating flight plans with Flight Plan Assembler.

Overview

Industry
Aerospace Industry
When
August 2022 - September 2023
Product Status
Launched March 2023
Software sold on demand
Team & My Role
Team Leader
UX/UI Designer (myself)
Software Engineer - Fullstack Developer
Problem

The tool was created without thinking about how to make it intuitive for the user. UI has elements that slow down the completion of tasks and create a lot of unnecessary clicks. Users often make mistakes when creating flight plans.

Goal

Redesigning the application so that the user experience will be more intuitive and the users will avoid making mistakes while making flight plans. New, and more visually attractive UI that includes branding of ISISPACE.

Challenges

The tool requires a good understanding of what it does and how it should work. Before designing, I made sure that I could understand every aspect of the tool’s functionality.

Solution

Organization of the UI into a section with commands grouped in categories and a section with a timeline of the next predicted satellite passes. When the user adds a command to the flight plan, it is placed into the timeline. The tool also detects the wrongly put timestamps and highlights them for better error detection.

Design Impact

Reduced time for preparation of flight plans. The built-in pass prediction and visual time separation make flight plan preparation faster and easier.

The errors are easily detectable, preventing costly mistakes with satellites in orbit.

Greatly increased sales and asking price.

Final Design

Pass timeline visualization

Users can view upcoming passes and create flight plans accordingly.

Reorganization of commands

Users can easily find commands by category and add them with just few clicks using the new UI organization.

Detect Errors in the Flight Plan

Incorrectly timed commands are marked as errors, with the tool indicating the problem's location.

My Tasks

Understanding the old tool and what are the problems.
Conducting user interviews and observations to learn how the tool is used, and defining the pain points.
Ideating & feature prioritization with the software engineer to understand the technical constraints.
Designing information architecture and user flows.
Wireframing and iterating the design.
User testing new features and redesigning UI to get a modern and branded look.
Preparation of the design hand-off and basic style guide that could be reused for the expansion of the tool.
Supporting the Software Developer during the implementation process.

Understanding the old tool and what are the problems.

Conducting user interviews and observations to learn how the tool is used, and defining the pain points.

Ideating & feature prioritization with the software engineer to understand the technical constraints.

Designing information architecture and user flows.

Wireframing and iterating the design.

User testing new features and redesigning UI to get a modern and branded look.

Preparation of the design hand-off and basic style guide that could be reused for the expansion of the tool.

Supporting the Software Developer during the implementation process.

Lessons Learnt

Collaboration with the software engineer from ideation prevents misunderstandings and limitations.
User interviews and observations reveal valuable tool insights.
Design hand-off must have detailed feature descriptions
Technical software processes are challenging but learnable.

Get in touch!

I am always open to hear about new projects. Just email me on