Emanuele Pagani
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UX Design Lead, Elevate · 2020 – 2021

Uber Elevate

The Uber Elevate team was working toward transforming the world through aerial ridesharing at scale. Imagine soaring above congested ground traffic. With Uber Air, this future is closer than you think. Uber was developing shared air transportation—planned for 2023—between suburbs and cities, and ultimately within cities. Working with our Elevate Network partners to launch fleets of small, electric VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Melbourne.

Services

  • UX product design
  • Vision
  • Strategy
  • Stakeholder management
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What Emanuele did

As a UX Lead at Uber Elevate, Emanuele was responsible for designing flight operations tools, pilot interfaces, and airspace contingency systems that supported eVTOL development. His work spanned pilot heads-up displays (HUDs), operational dashboards, and contingency planning tools, ensuring safety and efficiency were built into the foundations of Uber’s aerial mobility platform.

  1. 01Designed the Pilot HUD UI for modern eVTOL vehicles, focused on clarity, safety, and real-time awareness
  2. 02Built internal flight operations tools for trip configuration, airspace safety, and contingency management systems
  3. 03Developed several patent-pending UX solutions for airspace management and map-based operational tools
  4. 04Designed the Uber Air experience inside the Uber app, aimed at a global audience of over 110M users
  5. 05Authored the first Uber Elevate Community white paper, articulating use cases and vision for aerial ridesharing
  6. 06Directed all brand, PR, and marketing creative, aligning storytelling with product and aerospace innovation
An Uber Air eVTOL flying over London at dusk
Ready for takeoff: booking flights from the Uber app home
Uber Air in the Uber app
Introducing flights operated by Wheels Up, beside Rides and Eats
Select your trip: multimodal options from New York to Boston
On the way to the airport, with a before-you-fly card
Upcoming flight: pickup countdown to Newark Liberty Airport
Choosing seats for a flight to JFK
Uber Air in the Uber app: one more step of the booking
Contingency execution flow on the airspace map
Flight operations
The deviation debugger panel beside a flight's route
Filtering skylanes by operation or vehicle
Mitigation card details for a caution-level deviation
Card options for operations, vehicles and skylanes in every state
Vehicle puck styles: standard, caution, warning and non-Uber
Skylane states on the airspace map
Flight operations: another view of the tool
Flight operations: a detail
Flight operations: the overview
Uber Rider Narrative cover
Rider and pilot narratives
Liam’s booking: comparing UberX and Uber Air for his commute
Skyport terminal: check-in at a kiosk
eVTOL to last mile: meeting the UberX driver with a PIN
Uber Pilot Narrative cover
A multimodal eVTOL trip drawn over a night map
A rider's journey
A printed magazine spread with an eVTOL route map
Brand and marketing
Skylane Manager: starting a new skylane
Skylane Manager
Placing the first waypoints
Adding waypoints
Shaping the route
Adjusting a waypoint
The route with its altitude profile
A Dallas–Fort Worth skylane saved, with waypoints and altitude profile
Uber Air: Designing for the Community, the report's cover
Uber Air: Designing for the Community
Authors and contributors
Uber Elevate's community engagement
A closer look at Elevate's engagements
Educational collaboration
Interfacing with the community
Designing Uber Copter operations
A framework for engagement
Working with local governments and communities
Data analysis for community outreach
Strengthening the feedback loop
Uber Air eVTOL emissions study, the cover
eVTOL emissions study
Table of contents
Foreword
Comparing emissions by mode
Lifecycle emissions
Skyports and the city
Trends in eVTOL operations
A skyport at night
eVTOL emissions in figures
A global look at emissions
The eVTOL cabin: exterior cutaway
Cabin
The cabin seats
The cabin from above

Impact

By creating frameworks for pilot navigation, flight ops, and emergency scenarios, I helped define the design standards for an entirely new category of transportation. These efforts positioned Uber Elevate as a credible leader in the emerging urban air mobility space, advancing regulatory discussions and laying the groundwork for the eventual transition of the program to Joby Aviation.