Porter Flight Status — Colin LeBlanc

Porter's second most popular flow had a clarity problem

Flight Status gets 1.25 million visits a month at Porter, second only to booking. The page wasn't designed for travel: for the stressed, in-motion moments passengers open it. In interviews, gate agents flagged that passengers struggled with the page in those moments. Passengers came for one answer, and the old layout made them hunt for it while ignoring operational states like diverted flights. I redesigned it for clarity and coverage, built on the design system I developed in parallel, and validated the result with users.

1 Poor grouping between key actions harms usability, making scalability difficult and goes against Fitt's Law.

2 Secondary information clutters the page, shifting the user's focus away from what they came for.

3 Competing system states and dated layouts fail to quickly tell the user a story about what's happening with their flight.

4 Ineffective architecture made users have to manually search for their connecting flights.

Status before everything else

Passengers open this page between gates, mid-connection, or when plans shift, asking one thing: what's going on with the plane? Usability sessions showed users couldn't find the answer easily or quickly. Answering it well required two decisions: a layout that surfaces status first, and coverage of every operational state, including diverted flights, which the original didn't support. Canada's passenger regulations require airlines to keep passengers informed through delays and cancellations.

Redesigned Flight Status — status and timing at top, color-coded progress bar

Status first. Route and timing second. Everything else organized by urgency.

Don't make users search for connections

Mid-project, a backend constraint surfaced: the system couldn't tell whether a passenger was continuing on a connecting flight or ending their trip at a layover. I placed the next leg beneath the main result, visible to everyone, so no one has to find it manually.

Connecting flight shown beneath main flight result

Next leg shown by default. No separate search required.

Dark blue anchors the primary view

I used Porter's deep brand blue to establish hierarchy between the primary action and supporting details, so stressed passengers wouldn't have to guess what to do next. During testing, users located key actions on first try, without scanning or backtracking.

Results by flight number — before and after

The hierarchy reads before you process a word.

Added aircraft info as a moment of delight

I pushed for adding aircraft details and onboard service info as a small preview of the trip ahead. Our CX director questioned how relevant the content was. I made the case for it on the basis of gate recognition, anticipation, and delight, and proposed we test it directly: include the section in usability research and ask whether passengers noticed or valued it. She agreed. Users called it out unprompted, with one saying "oh, this section is really fun, I love it." We kept it in.

Aircraft type, configuration, and onboard services section

Aircraft type, configuration, and onboard services. Useful before boarding, memorable after.

Try the prototype

Results

5/5 test participants found and understood their flight without help. This held even in diverted and cancelled flight scenarios.

All users also rated the redesign higher than the original on clarity and ease of use.

Designs produced 20% faster using the new design system. Built on the design system I developed in parallel

What I'd do differently

Push for baseline call data before launch. Without it, the operational impact stays inferential rather than measurable. I'd negotiate for baseline call deflection rates before launch and a 60-90 day post-launch measurement window, even at the cost of launch timing.

Bring APPR into the design phase earlier. Treating regulatory communication standards as a starting input would have changed how I scoped operational state coverage. The divert gap would have surfaced sooner.

What's next

iOS Live Activities. Real-time flight status on the lock screen, before passengers open the app. I pitched this to Janet Bird, the Mobile Design Lead, after handoff. She was open to it and said the team would consider it when capacity allowed.