FD Pro 3.0 | Drew Leek

Professional Projects

FliteDeck Pro 3.0: Rebuilding the Industry’s Leading Mobile Charting Experience

By 2015, FliteDeck Pro had become Jeppesen’s most successful mobile application and the industry’s leading electronic charting solution for commercial airlines. Its impact was enormous—airlines adopting electronic flight bags saved approximately $1,575,000 annually in fuel alone by removing paper manuals and charts from the cockpit.

But despite its success, FliteDeck Pro faced growing challenges. As more operators adopted the app, pilots struggled with information overload, inconsistent saliency, and limited access to critical data. The original 2012 design could no longer keep pace with the complexity of modern flight operations.

At the time, FliteDeck Pro 3.0 was the largest redesign in the product’s history—a complete rethinking of how pilots access, interpret, and act on navigation information. I joined the UX team to help transform years of research into a modern, intuitive, and pilot‑centered charting experience.

Figure 1: Jeppesen Mobile TC (Terminal Charts)

*Note: Proprietary details have been removed or obfuscated. All content reflects my own experience and does not represent Jeppesen ForeFlight's official views.*

My Role

I served as a key bridge between the development team, requirements analysts, and the UX organization, ensuring alignment across technical, business, and design perspectives. My responsibilities included:

Supporting user research and testing across global operators
Authoring UX documentation and writing requirements
Translating research insights into actionable design direction
Supporting the redesign of core navigation and charting workflows
Collaborating closely with developers to ensure feasibility and clarity

This role required deep domain understanding, strong communication, and the ability to guide a complex, safety‑critical product through a major evolution.

Understanding the Challenge

Information Was There — But Buried

Jeppesen’s charting products have long been trusted by pilots worldwide. But moving decades of paper‑based information into a dynamic, interactive map introduced new challenges:

Too much information overwhelmed pilots and reduced trust
Too little information risked missing critical details
Legacy UI patterns made it difficult to surface the right data at the right time

The UX team’s research made it clear: pilots needed contextual information, not simply more information. The app had to adapt to the pilot’s workflow, phase of flight, and route—surfacing what mattered and hiding what didn’t.

Figure 2: FliteDeck Pro 1.1

Designing for Clarity, Context, and Confidence

Integrating Terminal and

Enroute Navigation

One of the most transformative changes was unifying the terminal chart and enroute map experiences. Pilots could now:

Jump directly to relevant terminal charts from the enroute view
Maintain situational awareness without switching modes
Access contextual information tied to their active route

This reduced cognitive load and made navigation more intuitive.

Introducing the Route List

The Route List became a central feature of FD Pro 3.0, surfacing:

Route‑specific details
Oceanic and desert crossing systems
Waypoints and procedures previously only available on paper

This eliminated the need for pilots to carry supplemental charts or manually annotate long‑range routes.

Figure 3: Object Details in FliteDeck Pro 3.0

Figure 4: Oceanic track details

Building Strategic Partnerships

A unique aspect of this project was the relationship the UX team built with Apple. We visited Cupertino multiple times to share progress and learn from Apple’s design and research practices.

Through this partnership, we gained:

Deep insight into iOS design patterns
Exposure to Apple’s rapid research and design sprint methods
Inspiration that led to Jeppesen’s own internal design sprint initiative

This collaboration elevated the quality and rigor of the FD Pro 3.0 redesign and influenced UX practices across the organization.

Outcome

FliteDeck Pro 3.0 delivered a modern, intuitive, and context‑aware charting experience that:

Improved pilot access to critical navigation information
Reduced reliance on external tools and paper charts
Enhanced situational awareness through integrated navigation
Provided new data layers and route systems for long‑range operations
Strengthened Jeppesen’s position as the industry leader in mobile charting

The redesign set the foundation for future enhancements and became a model for UX‑driven product development within the company.

Reflection

FliteDeck Pro 3.0 was a defining project in my UX career, because it was my first. It required balancing legacy strengths with modern expectations, navigating complex technical constraints, and designing for safety‑critical workflows used by pilots around the world.

Through this project, I strengthened my ability to:

Lead research‑driven redesigns at scale
Translate complex aviation workflows into intuitive interfaces
Collaborate across engineering, business, and data teams
Advocate for user‑centered design in high‑stakes environments

It remains one of the most impactful and rewarding projects I’ve contributed to, and laid the ground work for all of my future projects.