Increasing the design efficiency of airline boarding passes
passfail.squarespace.com
passfail.squarespace.com
His boarding pass is flawed in a number of ways
- It lists a time - is that the boarding time or time the flight is due to depart? (The one linked below has got this covered though)
- The time is stated in 12 hour clock format. Every single time you find in an airport is listed in the 24h format - the quickest way to hunt for your flight in my experience on the boards is to first find the time as that's what they're ordered by
- A lot of flights have 4 numbers - I'm not sure he could fit 4 in the tear off strip
- These days, most people print their boarding pass at home. I'd be really annoyed if this is what I was presented with, it's a colossal waste of ink and if (as I do) you have B&W printer, the contrast is not great
- His last design is frankly laughable. He shows a map of the States with JFK -> SEA. The JFK is on the left and SEA is on the right... doh
- He has not included anywhere the airport terminal of either departure or destination airport. It's a good sanity check when you get to the airport (if you've printed your own boarding pass) and also it's a good sanity check when you arrive at the airport and you then need to get a connecting flight - you remember which terminal you're in and the need to change
Also, why have a map of the US? Would he have a map of the world for international flights? There would be an awful lot of white space where the font wouldn't show up.
On all the trips I've taken the past few years I have checked in at home, and printed the boarding pass. The next time I will definitely use the 2D bar code on my cellphone. It's nice to have the information available, but I have that in the confirmation email, the boarding pass is (to me) just to prove that I'm allowed to get on the flight.
I was surprised (or maybe not so surprised) that none of the designs cut the length in half, like the Virgin America boarding tickets. When I flew Virgin for the first time, I found it pleasantly nice that I could fit the entire boarding pass in my pocket without it flapping out awkwardly and me worrying that the tab will come off.
Design is how it works, no?
But more than ticket designs, airlines really need to streamline their operations.
I just arrived back in California from Tokyo today, and about four hours of my travel time was spent negotiating with the airline, because they didn't believe that I actually had a ticket. Even though I bought the ticket by actually calling United and booking it, because I had some credit from a previous canceled trip.
They had a reservation in their system for the correct flight, but no actual ticket, and this was apparently confusing enough to everybody involved that I was able to actually fly from NRT to SMF via SFO without having what amounted to an actual plane ticket.
The above four hours doesn't include the two phone calls that it initially required to book the ticket; apparently, they've got a big problem with their outsourced call centers not actually issuing tickets to passengers. Or the fact that my return flight to Japan had the wrong date.
Let's not also forget that every ticket change incurs a fee of $250, no matter what the cause, and that they've pulled all the in-seat entertainment systems, and offer no power ports in Economy.
Nothing says 'take your money elsewhere' like a system that's inflexible, impossible to navigate, filled with opportunities for human error, and expensive.
This is probably why I like programming and tinkering so much, because it gives me a chance to make the world around me a little bit more amazing than it was.
iPhone App: http://itunes.apple.com/app/air-new-zealand-mpass/id30485120... J2ME app: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2008/11/01/mpass-is-live/
Most boarding passes of mine end up as bookmarks in whatever I'm reading on the flight. I've come back to books years later and discovered I was reading that on my 2005 Sydney trip or 2006 Port Douglas holiday etc. (OT - Adds to my connection with the book!)
Can't hurt to remember this document may not be single use - add extra brand value.
Personally, I like the last one by Davin Yoon. It separates graphically according to takeoff, flight and landing.
Yes, they are prettier, easier to use, but I'd be interested to see a design effort with this additional parameter of saving cost on ink or paper.
Notice how, while Virgin America does seem to be printing a lot of colors on the backside of their tickets, their ticket size is about half the size of standard tickets, thus, saving money on paper stock.
Edit: looks like some of the updates from other designers have addressed a more minimal use of ink. I think the Wallet Size one in particular wins for me. There's just no convenient place to carry standard-size tickets.
Also wallet size is only good if you print your boarding pass at the airport - if you print at home, you don't really want a flimsy piece of paper that small - and you would then have to cut to size.
Also want to note that I missed the part about the thermal printing, which would nullify the ink cost issue.
The old NW boarding cards had an easy to read table that showed your flight number, seat, and departure date/time for each connection, with the confirmation number, FF#, etc across the bottom. A lot easier to read, and less paperwork to fish out of my travel bag.
I think a lot of the tickets are expensive (given the large size fonts and I'm not sure but large blocks of even black ink).
The one with JJ is so, so easy to understand and maintains ink cost.
I think it's because I interact with boarding passes so infrequently that the data alone isn't enough for me to glean information – I need the explanation of what I'm looking at.
E.g., I know (555) 492-2882 (in the U.S.) is a phone number without it being labeled because I use phones enough to learn the format. I don't immediately know that Zone 5 is a seating schedule or a gate, because I don't fly enough.
I could see the design slowing down experienced fliers though (verbose UI tends to do that). It looks like the data is repeated in a just-the-facts style in the right column (maybe for that exact reason), but rather than repeating everything I think it'd be cool if the descriptive section was rearranged so the numbers all line up vertically or something for even easier scanning for those who know what the numbers mean.
I'm really impressed with that design solution though, and how JJ approached it differently from everyone else.
Given the popularity of smartphones and dictionaries, I think I can punch in that text and get back a reasonable understanding of what the ticket means - rather than a non-verbose ticket with English section markings and roman numerals (no - the entire world doesnt use Roman numerals)
For that reason I think any boarding pass that is to be successful needs to have the same information in the same places - the guy at the X-ray machine should not be reading entire paragraphs just to verify which flight you're on, nor should the gate agent you're asking question to.