Boarding Pass re-design
 

I do like this idea: LINK

Redesign for readability/usability is always a good idea, but I find this attempt to be a failure for more reasons than is worth listing here. (start with where am I? where am I flying? what's a FRA/T1? Why is a row of numbers with one in different shading better than a single big number.... ) This may be good for FT'ers but terrible for the general public, IMHO

(btw, who boards 2:29 before flight time?)

And the passenger boarding group is needed BEFORE boarding, not after.

I agree with most of the premise here, but I do disagree on one part: Small type for the destination. When I have three boarding passes in my hand that is the part I am looking for. I have a boarding pass to Chicago, then a boarding pass to Frankfurt, and finally a boarding pass to Prague. Apparently I think about my trip very differently than the writer. I am not holding boarding pass for flight 225 from Washington Dulles. I'm holding a boarding pass for flight 225 to San Francisco.

Honestly I'm just glad the new UA fixed the "feature" post merger of having both the origin and destination as the absolute smallest type on the entire piece of paper.

Very cool read... would love to read more along these lines. Also, is there a good longread about how boarding passes came to be?

Put the destination in full.. not just the airport code.

To show infrequent flyers that their boarding priority is 2nd out of 6, for instance. Or 7th out of 7. A subtle hint to stay the *(@$*% out of the immediate gate area until your zone is called. :D

I never knew I was supposed to find boarding passes confusing. I think they work pretty well currently, IMHO.

More designs here, if anyone's interested: http://passfail.squarespace.com/

people who design these kinds of passes forget that airport technology is from the 70s. There is no PCL/PostScript in the airport world. Everything is done via a proprietary markup language over a serial connection. Additionally, all that black wears out thermal heads.

I like the idea, but the graphics should be more realistic.

http://thumbnails.illustrationsource...e.16.81056.JPG

Someone should write an app in the interim that lets you point your camera on the boarding pass and in real time translates the information as easy to read directions (along with potential value add - like say directions to the gate). I can see this being useful for elderly folks who have smartphones, but are not comfortable with taking well focussed photos - apps like wordlens don't require you to take a photo, just point the camera and the translation happens in real time. Of course, this can only work if the real time translation is accurate and doesn't direct the hapless person to A75 instead of A57...

+1 ^

And still more that think "JFK-SEA" is better for the general public than the existing "Seattle" and "NYC-Kennedy".

And what's with the rotated tiny text on the stub on the right? When's the last time someone ripped off the end of a BP and gave it back to you?

And why DL31 instead of just Flight 31? The Delta logo is on the BP. Either spell out Delta or leave it off. The general public doesn't know WN, B6, EK, etc. (Flight DL31 on Jet Blue tells me this designer doesn't either)

These folks seem to be stuck on making the exact same information in bigger fonts, different colors, backgrounds, graphics, etc? I'm sure there are better ways, but these aren't them IMHO.

but the Departures screens show 'Airline name+logo' then flight number as DL31 or similar, if its closer to what they're looking for on the screen its probably easier to find where to go.

Building a Better Boarding Pass
 

A designer has thought about the most logical layout of a boarding pass and has come up with some ideas:


"I never understood why boarding passes are not laid out chronologically,” says Glynn-Finnegan. “It seems obvious. You are on a journey with a clear beginning and a clear ending. It always baffled me why the rest of the information didn’t fit into that timeline clearly."


http://www.wired.com/design/2013/09/...slideid-247201

Certainly seems better. The biggest issue is that there are a ton of numbers, letters, etc on a boarding pass and it becomes a jumble anytime you need a quick glance. I really appreciate the Passbook boarding passes on the iPhone for the sake of displaying less information, and only what is applicable to me. Anyone who needs anything more will have to scan it and then only gets info applicable to them.

If it is sequential the passenger should be first, as they will use it from beginning to end. Make it easy for Kettles.

Then TSA, then the airline.

Personally I'd aim to make it easiest for the TSA (snarky speculation redacted). Anything to speed things up at security checkpoint.

There's a thread on this already... and apparently Wired used this guys images.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...re-design.html

That which was designed as a hiring program shall not be simplified, sped up, or made to be more efficient.

Besides, aesthetic design won't help teach a pig to sing.

Why hasn't anyone mentioned the size of the boarding pass. We're long past the time when we need such big boarding passes, as most of the time they're not kept by the airline. The stub should be enough. I know it's an industry standard, but it's one that can change :).

I commend the effort, and suppose I like the idea of trying to simplify the boarding pass, but... I am not sure it's really improving things or making it worse. Boarding passes are really a compromise document by nature - it has to work for many people in many different situations with often unknown or vague data. You can optimize it better for one group, but at the expense of another. And I am concerned that some information that may look senseless to one person is really important to another (or that looks vital is really useless). I mean, look what happened when DL tried to change theirs - there was a lot of problems and adjustments, an a lot of fixing.

Personally, I would like to better focus on signage and information int eh airport itself first, and maybe information availability from the airlines, before worrying about a minor document.

Chronologically makes no more sense than using an "event sequence" method. Take the LH re-design. It's crap. :D The original link did explain why it was laid out that way and provided a series of nice graphics on the layout structure, but when you glance at the finished idea that structure is completely lost and the info is just as sprayed around as any other pass. Why would anyone (who knows anything about user interface design) use three different font colours on the top "TSA" section? For eg. Is this really easier to read at a glance?

Every time you change font colour you force the reader (mentally) to run a check for continuity and relevance to earlier info. It's all that much more time and mental fatigue. I don't know about you, but even half a second of extra time is too much with TSA, and I'm pretty certain that causing them increased mental fatigue is not good for them.

Almost all the designs are the same: they're simply layout style changes and they all rely on linear segmentation, not actually trying to present the information differently. The only actual exception IMO is the Air NZ flight record (it's not actually one of their boarding pases, although they do look similar) where they have broken it up into segments in a way that makes the segments actually visually meaningful. Of all of them, that's the only one that shows any progress. The rest are just moving the chairs about on the deck.

^

This one gets you halfway there - although I don't think it gives "directions"!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/barc...504201315?mt=8