
Designing Ryanair’s Boarding Pass - plurby
https://medium.com/@aonghusdavoren/priority-queue-designing-ryanair-s-boarding-pass-a15895092211#.nce2w1cbg
======
neumann
I always assumed that Ryan Air's design follows a deliberate dark pattern so
as to maximise the likelihood you will end up paying for a missed flight /
wrong baggage size etc.

~~~
slededit
Its not enough that Ryan Air have cheap prices, they must also "feel" like a
budget carrier. Unfortunately abuse of passengers is part of this. The abuse
can be seen as a confirmation the customer really got the lowest price
possible for their flight.

It also has another side-effect: Most passengers don't have serious problems.
But they are expecting at least some hassle and discomfort so for the majority
of flights they are under-promising and over delivering. A more respectable
airliner couldn't compete with them in this way, customers expect better of
them.

~~~
soneil
It always feels like there’s an element of marketting to this too. I think it
reinforces not just budget, but out-right cheap. Uncompromisingly cheap.

I would not be surprised if you could find americans who have never set foot
outside of north america, who could still name ryanair as being the cheap
option here. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they couldn’t name a second. (not
to assault the stereotype too much, just to single out a demographic who have
never had any need to put one second of research into the topic.)

All the headline grabbing “charging for toilets” nonsense is really effective,
free marketting.

------
bretthopper
I read the title and immediately thought "oh no, not again" thinking this was
yet another "portfolio redesign".

Thankfully it's actually a redesign by Ryanair itself. Whenever I have a paper
boarding pass I always fold it into my password so this is a great
improvement.

~~~
kobayashi
>Whenever I have a paper boarding pass I always fold it into my password so
this is a great improvement.

I'm unclear about what you mean. Would you mind to clarify, please?

Edit: What HN users choose to downvote sometimes bewilders me...

~~~
iyn

        s/password/passport

~~~
collyw
I am curious if this syntax is valid in anything other than Perl? (Though even
that would need a trailing slash).

~~~
iyn
Right, forgetting about the trailing slash is similar to forgetting about the
semicolon ;), thank you for pointing that out. Besides Perl, it should also
work with sed, I don't know about anything else.

~~~
collyw
I miss coding in Perl....

------
open-source-ux
A very nice improvement over the old boarding pass. The information is laid
out much more clearly and seems more easy to scan.

The only minor change I'd consider is having a black-and-white version of the
pass without large solid blocks of colour (for example, by using line icons
for graphics instead). This would save a lttle bit on printer ink.

~~~
dublinben
You could just print it in black in white. None of the colors convey important
information.

~~~
open-source-ux
The solid blocks of colour will still be printed as solid blocks of black or
grey wasting a small bit of printer ink :-)

------
tyingq
The new design seems to make sense, but I'm somewhat skeptical these are all
their own ideas.

They have an odd history of straight up copying ideas, sometimes verbatim...to
the point where it's embarrassing.[1]

[1] [http://www.airliners.net/aviation-
forums/general_aviation/pr...](http://www.airliners.net/aviation-
forums/general_aviation/print.main?id=3402022)

Edit: Yep. That clever boarding pass where you fold it in fours...Virgin
America, back in 2014.
[https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/87CD50B8DF10701528930526248...](https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/87CD50B8DF1070152893052624896_21fecd30072.0.2.13977125890185955206.mp4?versionId=QihFNyugGQ7xN1nDpuSkhx5KavBbr.N5)

Edit 2: In retrospect, I suppose this sounds pretty harsh. The connotation of
"Labs", "Research", "Design", etc just sticks in my craw...especially when
paired with what's basically a copy of another airline's idea, rolled out with
operational testing that didn't involve the actual operational groups.

~~~
Kluny
Well it's not art, it's a boarding pass. They ought to be reusing ideas
whenever possible.

~~~
tyingq
Inspiration, sure. The copy of Southwest's Ding! was funny though, as they
literally copied the text that referred to partnerships with ATA.

------
Macha
I find it interesting that if you fold the pass according to the instructions,
you get the core pass on the front and the ads on the back, while if you do
the opposite, you get the core pass on the front and the schedule on the back.

~~~
bdarnell
Regardless of the instructions, I think that's the way most people would fold
it into quarters. Notice that they rearranged the sections from the first
wireframe to the final version; the same folding steps would have hidden the
ads in the first version.

~~~
cyxxon
Indeed, that is the worst change from the original draft to the final version
in my opinion. It puts Ryanairs wants over the passengers needs, clearly.
because as a passenger I just don't care for the ad, but the travel plan is a
really great idea and will probably be unused by most passengers...

~~~
masklinn
They noted fairly explicitly that ads were a business requirement, so that was
a noticeable but utterly unsurprising change. I noted two important things
though:

* there is still less ad-space on the new boarding pass than on the old one

* the final version can still be folded such that you get the pass on one side and the trip information on the other

If that got the marketroids to sign off on it, it seems like a pretty damn
good compromise. The ryanair experience is one of ads, hidden charges and
upselling either way.

------
Fiahil
"A large part of Ryanair’s revenue is generated by ancillary income, so
allowing for ad space was an important business requirement."

They seem to care so much about their ad space, that I wonder if I can edit
the boarding pass, remove the ads before printing it and still board my plane.
How long before they start aggressively promoting stuff in the cabin for the
whole duration of the trip?

~~~
dingaling
I've never had a problem just printing the pass part, though I generally use
their app now.

Some trivia: Ryanair are not IATA members but discovered that organization had
issued them a code of FR, for internal use. Ryanair just started using it on
boarding passes and flight information systems and save themselves thousands
in IATA membership fees!

Easyjet aren't members either but instead use their catchy ICAO code EZY.
Their philosophy being that if an airport wants their custom they can damn
well upgrade their system to handle three-character codes.

~~~
arcticbull
Easyjet has an IATA code of U2; you're right that they're not a member either,
I assume they got their code the same way :)

------
sondr3
I've never flown with an American company, but I have flown quite a bit with a
few here in Europe, particularly Norwegian and they use a digital boarding
pass that I add to the Wallet app on my iPhone. It's super convenient and
really nice.

~~~
josephpmay
Digital boarding passes are the standard in America now too, but airlines
offer paper back-ups for those that don't have compatible phones or in the
case of technical difficulties.

~~~
dmd
"The standard" ... where do you fly out of? I fly out of BOS (roughly twice a
month) and I'd estimate 1 person in 50 uses a phone.

------
wodenokoto
What are the problems with the new design from operational staffs perspective?

The article ends by saying they wished they had taken operational staffs
opinion into account, but there are no examples with things this does worse
than the old.

------
Animats
Ads on the boarding pass. That's so Ryanair.

------
kurthr
Looks similar to a paper version of a United Mobile boarding pass:
[http://pointsmilesandmartinis.boardingarea.com/wp-
content/up...](http://pointsmilesandmartinis.boardingarea.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/11/screen568x568-2.jpeg)

Still, an improvement... I always assumed the form factor was driven by the
ticket printers installed for the airport gate agents.

~~~
arcticbull
IME boarding passes for Ryanair printed at the airport are printed on
traditional airline card stock (and usually by contractors, not Ryanair
proper), based on a 'standard' design.

Ryanair wants the primary boarding pass to be one that everyone brings with
them. In that case they have a lot more flexibility. So long as they use a
PDF-417 code and it fits into one of those little barcode scanners they could
design it pretty much any way they wanted.

------
fractallyte
I flew Ryanair a couple of weeks ago, without having been aware of the
boarding pass re-design.

I saw immediately that it was meant to be folded into quarters. _Neat_ , I
thought. Then I found myself referring to each section at various times, and
actually finding the information _really useful_.

It's great to be pleasantly surprised by well-considered design.

------
nthcolumn
Complete fail. Ryanair first, customer last as per usual. Why do they make
their customer print advertisements? Have they done anything to reduce the
amount of ink required?

~~~
distances
How is this a failure? The old boarding pass contained advertisements too, and
actually much more of them. The requirement for ads was clearly addressed in
the article:

    
    
      Section 4: Promotional space
      
      A large part of Ryanair’s revenue is generated by
      ancillary income, so allowing for ad space was an
      important business requirement.
    

So that's that. It's income, and part of keeping the costs down. I don't mind
as long as I can hide them by folding the paper.

------
amelius
> If you forgot to print your own boarding pass you’d incur a hefty fee for
> the convenience of Ryanair printing it for you.

Yes that happened to me. Worst flight check-in user-experience ever.

------
1024core
Wait: back up a little. RyanAir has "labs" ?!???

~~~
alkonaut
I imagine they need a lab do do all the experimenting required to find the
exact treshold of pain for airline passengers. Test protocols must look like

Test 101: 4.30 am landing at airport in neighboring country to destination.
Unhappiness 24% recommendation: YES.

Test 102: Non-parent passengers laps sold as seats for random children.
Unhappiness 54% recommendation: YES.

Test 103: Electric cattle prod boarding: Boarding speedup 112% Unhappiness 92%
recommendation: NO.

