The Aviation Challenge (TAC)

The Aviation Challenge is an initiative that brings airlines and aviation partners together to explore, develop and share solutions that can make the aviation industry more sustainable.

For its 2024 edition, the challenge expanded its participation beyond the SkyTeam alliance for the first time, focusing on encouraging the adoption of practical sustainability solutions across the industry.

The digital experience needed to support two connected audiences: visitors exploring the initiative and registered participants engaging with its activities, events, solutions and knowledge-sharing opportunities.

My role was to design both sides of this experience, creating a connected digital ecosystem that communicated the initiative publicly while supporting participants through the platform.

The experience involved several types of information and interactions, from public programme information to participant profiles, events, submissions and shared knowledge.

The challenge was to organise these different needs into a coherent experience without making the platform difficult to navigate.

The design needed to:

• Make the initiative easy to understand

  Communicate its purpose clearly to every visitor.

• Give visitors a clear way to explore

  The programme, people and solutions.

• Help participants get to what matters

  Relevant activities and platform features.

• Organise events and timelines

  Programme milestones and submission-related information.

• Support knowledge sharing

  Visibility of sustainability initiatives across the community.

• Keep both sides consistent

  One experience across the public website and participant platform.

I approached the work using existing requirements and stakeholder inputs as the foundation for the design.

Rather than treating the website and participant platform as unrelated products, I considered how the two experiences connected.

The public-facing experience introduced the initiative and made its content discoverable. The participant platform provided a more task-oriented environment for accessing activities, managing profile information, exploring solutions and engaging with the community.

This helped establish the overall structure and the different types of journeys the experience needed to support.

The initial design exploration focused on understanding the requirements, organising information and mapping the experience.

The FigJam board brought together different working areas, including abstract concept exploration, persona-related considerations, design planning and an onboarding flow. It served as a space to organise ideas and work through the structure before moving into detailed interface design.

The planning work helped translate broad requirements into more tangible screens, sections and user journeys.

I focused on making the experience structured, consistent and easy to scan.

• A connected ecosystem

  The public website and participant platform were designed as related experiences, with clear distinctions between content discovery and participant activities.

• Clear information hierarchy

  Content such as events, programme details, solutions, community updates and submissions needed to be presented in a way users could understand quickly.

• Task-oriented interactions

  Participant-facing areas were organised around meaningful activities, such as exploring solutions, updating profile information and accessing submission-related features.

• Consistent visual language

  A dark interface, clear typography, structured cards and restrained use of colour helped establish a consistent visual system across the platform.

• A. Public-facing website

  The public website acted as the entry point to The Aviation Challenge. It introduced the initiative and provided access to key areas such as solutions, people, impact, challenges, events and news. The About Us experience used editorial-style content and imagery to communicate the initiative's purpose, while the impact section presented programme-related information in a structured format.

• B. Participant dashboard

  The participant platform provided a personalised starting point after login. The dashboard brought together profile information, activity indicators, badges, community information and relevant content. The intention was to give participants a useful overview rather than making them navigate through multiple sections to understand what was available.

• C. Communities and knowledge sharing

  The platform included areas for communities of practice, shared knowledge and participant contributions. The interface used structured content cards and clear categories to make discussions, updates and shared resources easier to browse.

• D. Events and programme management

  Event-related information was organised through calendar and programme views. The calendar presented upcoming activities by date, while the programme view organised sessions, timings and speaker information into a structured schedule.

• E. Solutions and submissions

  The participant experience included solution discovery and submission-related areas. Solutions could be explored through categories and filters, while submission-related screens presented information about participants' work and its progress.

• F. Timeline and awards

  A timeline-based layout helped communicate important programme milestones and submission dates. Award categories were presented separately, giving participants a clearer view of the different recognition areas within the challenge.

The final interface design brought the public website and participant platform together through a consistent visual direction.

Across the designed screens, the experience covered event discovery, programme schedules, participant profiles, dashboards, communities, knowledge sharing, solution discovery, submissions, impact information and award-related content.

The overall design scope covered approximately 52 screens across the two experiences.

The 2024 edition demonstrated the scale of collaboration and sustainability initiatives taking place across the aviation industry.

• 24

  airlines participated

  The challenge brought together 24 airlines, including two participants from outside the SkyTeam alliance for the first time.

• 33

  showcase flights

  Participating airlines used 33 flights to test and demonstrate sustainability initiatives.

• 327

  innovative solutions

  A total of 327 solutions were submitted for award consideration across 18 subcategories, grouped under advancing adoption, boosting collaboration and empowering stakeholders.

• 10%

  improvement in CO₂ intensity

  Operational enhancements across the showcase flights achieved a 10% improvement in CO₂ intensity compared with participating airlines' own baselines.

• 20%

  reduction against the industry average

  Technological improvements achieved a 20% reduction in CO₂ intensity compared with the industry average, excluding the impact of Sustainable Aviation Fuel.

• 427 t

  of CO₂ emissions avoided

  The use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel on selected flights avoided 427 tonnes of CO₂ emissions, alongside an 11% increase in SAF usage.

Source: Official The Aviation Challenge 2024 results.

The digital experience supported the initiative by bringing programme information, participant activities and shared sustainability knowledge into a connected platform. Its contribution can be understood through three areas:

• Discoverability

  The public website provided a central place to explore the initiative, its participating community, solutions, events and sustainability impact.

• Participant engagement

  The logged-in platform brought together dashboards, profiles, events, submissions and community activities, giving participants a structured environment to engage with the challenge.

• Knowledge sharing

  Solution listings, communities of practice and knowledge-sharing content provided digital spaces for participants to discover and exchange ideas.

Together, these experiences supported the broader objective of making sustainability initiatives more visible and encouraging collaboration across participating airlines.

Note: These describe the intended role and capabilities of the designed experience. No independent usability, engagement or conversion measurements were available to quantify the platform's direct contribution.

The interface followed a dark visual direction with a strong emphasis on readability and content structure. Key design decisions included:

• Dark backgrounds

  A consistent visual foundation across the experience.

• Blue accents

  Highlighting interactive elements and important actions.

• Card-based layouts

  Organising complex information into manageable sections.

• Clear typography and spacing

  Establishing hierarchy across every screen.

• Consistent patterns

  Navigation and components reused across the experience.

The visual approach was intended to keep the platform professional and information-focused while giving different content types a recognisable structure.

My contribution covered the UX and UI design work across the public-facing website and participant platform. This included:

• Reviewing existing requirements and stakeholder inputs.
• Organising information and structuring the experience.
• Exploring concepts and mapping user journeys.
• Developing the onboarding flow and interface structure.
• Designing wireframes and screen layouts.
• Establishing visual patterns and interface consistency.
• Designing approximately 52 screens across both experiences.

This project reinforced the importance of structuring complex information before moving into detailed UI design.

When a platform serves different audiences and supports multiple types of activities, the quality of the experience depends on how clearly those needs are organised and connected.

It also strengthened my experience in designing across a broader digital ecosystem, where a public-facing website and a logged-in platform need to feel consistent while serving different user goals.