

Increasing the design efficiency of airline boarding passes - cwan
http://passfail.squarespace.com/

======
smiler
I've honestly never had a problem with a boarding pass - regardless of the
format it's pretty easy to decipher.

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

~~~
somebear
I totally agree with your criticism. His designs look nice, but it seems like
that has been the focus rather than conveying the important information.
Something like the missing terminal is an excellent example of this.

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.

------
iamwil
I didn't like that first design. Whatever typeface that is that is long and
tall makes it hard to read.

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?

~~~
donw
Oh god yes, this would be nice... my ticket ends up beaten all to hell by the
time I finally get through security, mostly because I've got nowhere to put it
but in my pocket.

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.

~~~
swombat
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk>

~~~
donw
I guess I'm just not happy because everything isn't as amazing as it could be.

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.

------
rabidgremlin2
I worked on this for Air New Zealand, it downloads your flights to your phone
and displays a barcode that can be scanned at the check-in kiosks and at the
gate.

iPhone App: [http://itunes.apple.com/app/air-new-zealand-
mpass/id30485120...](http://itunes.apple.com/app/air-new-zealand-
mpass/id304851207?mt=8) J2ME app:
<http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2008/11/01/mpass-is-live/>

------
JacobAldridge
I think there's also the option (and, it appears, space) for some ongoing
marketing, even if it's just their website.

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.

~~~
donw
I thought I was the only person that did that...

~~~
stretchwithme
I use mine to clean my ears. So, by the end of the flight, its...completely
ready to be your bookmark :-)

Personally, I like the last one by Davin Yoon. It separates graphically
according to takeoff, flight and landing.

------
hkuo
One advantage the original design has is its low cost of ink. Just look at
SquareSpace's redesigns and those huge blocks of black, red, and blue. Just
trying to eye it, I would estimate anywhere from an 800% to 1000% increase in
ink. Multiply that with the enormous amount of tickets printed, and that's a
lot of ink....and a lot of money.

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.

~~~
smiler
Wallet size has no tear off to be collected by the gate agent so it's no good.

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.

~~~
hkuo
Perhaps it is each airlines particular systems or operations that requires the
torn tickets. Virgin America's tickets don't come with any part to tear. At
boarding, they scan it in and hand it back to you. That would work for a
wallet size as well. For people printing a pass, well, they're using a full
sheet of paper anyways, so there could be a different design for printed
tickets, the same way printed concert ticket designs are different than
official tickets that are mailed to you.

Also want to note that I missed the part about the thermal printing, which
would nullify the ink cost issue.

------
duck
This was on HN before... but I can't seem to find it. This was another design
based off of it that I thought was interesting -
[http://blog.timoni.org/post/318322031/a-practical-
boarding-p...](http://blog.timoni.org/post/318322031/a-practical-boarding-
pass-redesign)

------
ben1040
One thing I really liked about Northwest was that just before they were bought
out, they had redesigned their boarding passes to print all your flights on
one sheet. Seems Delta has chosen not to run with that, though.

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.

------
sandGorgon
My favorite of them all is the one by JJ at Graphicology (the one with a
verbose text).

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.

~~~
bouncingsoul
I only skimmed, but that was also the one that stuck in my head.

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.

~~~
potatolicious
I think we need to remember that boarding passes aren't just for the traveler,
but are required by various staff members frequently (any inquiries being
made, security checkpoints, etc).

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.

~~~
sandGorgon
If you take a look at that ticket again: the only data that is variable-sized,
is on a separate line - viz the Full Name of the passenger. I do not think the
positions of any other information would ever change - which means it would be
staff friendly.

