Designing experiences inside a critical ecosystem for airlines.

Booking, sales, check-in, operations, distribution, loyalty, and passenger services are part of the same operation.

My work at KIU was to design products and systems able to coexist inside that ecosystem.

Radial diagram of the KIU PSS ecosystem: Business Management, Operations, and Digital Retailing around the core, with DCS and GDS at the top.
KIU PSS ecosystem

01 · The domain

An airline looks like a service. Underneath, multiple systems are coordinating.

Before the flight

  1. 01 Search
  2. 02 Quote
  3. 03 Book
  4. 04 Pay
  5. 05 Manage trip

Travel day

  1. 01 Check-in
  2. 02 Airport
  3. 03 Board
  4. 04 Fly

After

  1. 01 Post-trip

Actors involved

  • Passenger
  • Agency
  • Airport
  • Operations
  • Commercial
  • Administration

The passenger experience is only the surface.

02 · One operation, many actors

The same journey crosses different systems, users, and decisions.

Conceptual map of a flight operation. It does not represent a real flight or client data.

Passenger

  • Search
  • Booking
  • Payment
  • Check-in

Airline

  • Inventory
  • Pricing
  • PSS
  • Revenue
  • Operations

Flight

Airport

  • Check-in
  • Seat assignment
  • Boarding
  • Baggage

Agencies

  • Availability
  • Booking
  • Ticketing
  • Servicing

A flight is not a product. It is a shared operation.

03 · The platform

KIU connects different parts of that ecosystem.

KIU System Solutions offers a suite of digital solutions that connects airlines, travel agencies, and passengers. The grouping below is a visual device for this case study, not an official corporate taxonomy.

Editorial grouping for this case study

04 · The challenge

Many products could solve their own problem. The challenge was making them work as a suite.

Different users

  • Passengers
  • Agents
  • Operators
  • Supervisors
  • Airport staff

Different contexts

  • Desktop
  • Mobile
  • Airport
  • Backoffice
  • Critical operations

Different generations

  • Existing products
  • Evolving interfaces
  • New products
  • New capabilities

The design problem was not only optimizing screens. It was creating coherence without ignoring operational complexity.

05 · My responsibility

My work was to operate between product, design, and system.

Product

  • Understand operations
  • Users
  • Constraints
  • Priorities

Design

  • Experiences
  • Workflows
  • Interfaces
  • Prototypes
  • Validation

System

  • Shared patterns
  • Design System
  • Criteria
  • Components
  • Governance

Collaboration

  • Product
  • Engineering
  • QA
  • Functional analysts
  • Product Designers

06 · The change in scale

We stopped treating each interface as an isolated problem. We started designing a shared experience.

This was not a blank slate: the suite already existed. The shift was one of maturity — moving from local decisions to a common language that could scale.

Before

  • IBE
  • DCS
  • Loyalty
  • Cargo

After

Shared experience

  1. Products
  2. Patterns
  3. Research
  4. Design System
  5. Shared principles

07 · From problems to capabilities

The pattern: condition, criterion, design infrastructure.

  • Condition

    Products with inconsistent patterns

    Decision

    Create a shared language

    Capability

    KIUverse / Design System

  • Condition

    Complex operations

    Decision

    Design around tasks, states, and exceptions

    Capability

    UX architecture

  • Condition

    Users with different expertise

    Decision

    Adapt density and progressive disclosure

    Capability

    Interaction patterns

  • Condition

    Many teams building

    Decision

    Systematize decisions

    Capability

    Tokens and components

  • Condition

    Critical contexts

    Decision

    Validate behavior

    Capability

    Research and usability testing

08 · The ecosystem

One suite. Different moments of the same operation.

Linked nodes open a published case. The rest appears as suite context.

KIU ecosystem diagram. Passenger services at the top. Distribution and PSS in the center. Check-in and operations below.

Agencies · Web

09 · Projects

Projects inside the ecosystem.

Some problems required transversal decisions. Others deserved a deep exploration inside a single product.

DCS / Airport Operations

01

Quick Check-in

Redesigning a critical tool to reduce complexity during the check-in operation.

  • Research
  • Workflow
  • Interaction
  • Usability

In progress

Two people review a document together

Designing at system scale.

At KIU, the work did not end on a screen. It meant building consistency across products, respecting operational complexity, and leaving design infrastructure that could keep evolving.

Explore case

What is KIU System Solutions?

KIU System Solutions is a technology company for the airline industry. It offers a full suite that connects airlines, travel agencies, and passengers on a unified platform. Its services are present in Latin America, Africa, and Europe, supporting flight operations and distribution.

KIU main interface
Reservations module
Passenger loyalty program
Design System

Design System

Unified design system for the KIU suite

In process
Reservation Management System

Reservation Management System

End-to-end platform for airline reservation management

In process
Loyalty Program

Loyalty Program

Loyalty and rewards system for airlines

In process
DCS (Departure Control System)

DCS (Departure Control System)

Departure control system and flight operations

In process
Cargo System

Cargo System

Air cargo management platform

In process
Booking Engine (IBE)

Booking Engine (IBE)

Online booking engine for passengers and agencies

In process

The team at KIU

As UX Lead, I lead the design team with a philosophy of shared practices, transparent decisions, and ongoing collaboration with product and engineering. We design critical digital services for airlines across different regions.

Team members

UX Lead

Product Designers

Frontend Developers

Backend Developers

Product Managers

Key contributions

My main contributions as UX Lead focused on standardization, scalability, and user experience across the suite:

Unified Design System

Definition and maintenance of the KIUverse design system based on Material 3, applied across the suite’s products.

Experience Architecture

Design of key flows for reservations, check-in, departure control, and loyalty programs.

Accessibility and Usability

Application of accessibility criteria and usability testing in products used across different markets and operational contexts.

Suite Scalability

Definition of reusable components and guidelines to keep consistency between new and existing products.

Skills and technologies

At KIU we work with agile methods and modern technologies to support the suite’s scalability.

UX Leadership
Design System
Material 3
Service Design
Design Tokens
User Research
Wireframing
Prototyping
Usability
Accessibility
Figma
Tailwind
React
TypeScript
Agile