Delta Ticket Redesign
Aug 2018
Sketching, InDesign
Delta Airline annually flies 186.39 million passengers (2017) from all over the world. A passenger's experience of riding an airplane begin as they receive a boarding pass and the ticket soon becomes something they can rely on to board their ride in time. But is the ticket really "user-friendly" for passengers from all around the world?
My classmate Julie Lee and I took this opportunity to redesign and enhance the passenger (user) experience of the current Delta Airline ticket. We used user-centered approach to recognize different types of users and to resolve their problems. For us, we wanted to focus on international passengers to whom English is not their first language and answer this design question:
How would we design a more inclusive design by using visualizations to represent information?
Design Process
Defining User Group
First, we defined our users and their goals and categorized them to two groups:
Passengers are individuals, or customers who purchase and ride the flights from an airline to travel. Their goal is to arrive at the gate in time and ride the flight to reach their destination.
Non-passengers are individuals who either work at the airport or at the airline whose goals are to facilitate the processes the passengers have to go through to ride the airplane; people like security guards and flight attendants would be included in this user group.
For this design process, we decided that our primary user group to be the passengers. Nonetheless we have considered non-passengers in our process as their interaction with the ticket help shape the experiences of the passengers.
Personas
To understand our primary user group in more depth, we researched the passengers of Delta Airline. We found that passengers from 95 countries have access to Delta from their airports and their ages range from 18 to 64 years old. To further categorize the passengers, the team took account of various factors such as:
• Age, gender, nationality, occupation
Passengers are individuals, or customers who purchase and ride the flights from an airline to travel. Their goal is to arrive at the gate in time and ride the flight to reach their destination.
Non-passengers are individuals who either work at the airport or at the airline whose goals are to facilitate the processes the passengers have to go through to ride the airplane; people like security guards and flight attendants would be included in this user group.
For this design process, we decided that our primary user group to be the passengers. Nonetheless we have considered non-passengers in our process as their interaction with the ticket help shape the experiences of the passengers.
Personas
To understand our primary user group in more depth, we researched the passengers of Delta Airline. We found that passengers from 95 countries have access to Delta from their airports and their ages range from 18 to 64 years old. To further categorize the passengers, the team took account of various factors such as:
• Age, gender, nationality, occupation
• Familiarity with riding airplanes and relevant technology
• Frequency in their travel
• Purpose of travel
• Traveling alone or with company
• Accessibility to accommodations at airport
Based on the user research, we created personas of different passenger types we wished to make the ticket more accessible to. Below are the two personas I created.
Based on the user research, we created personas of different passenger types we wished to make the ticket more accessible to. Below are the two personas I created.
Ideation
First, we defined our user groups who use the ticket to fulfill their goals and categorized them to two groups: passengers and non-passengers.
VISUAL COMMUNICATION: VISUALS ARE A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
We used more icons and images to represent important information for flying so it easier to digest for people who don’t have a lot of experience flying or for
non-English speaking people.
non-English speaking people.
Passengers vs Non-passengers
We divided the ticket into two parts for our two different user groups. Area to the left of the dotted line are for passengers and the area to the right of the line are for non-passengers, like flight attendants and security guards.
Icons
Our goal was to replace English labels and information with icons to make them more intuitive for international passengers. Although we could not entirely replace the labels with icons, we used icons (airplane, time, gate, seat) matching the pre-gate information for the passengers.
Visual Process
We attempted to visually show the pre-gate process to passengers by exploring different flows of information. The ticket on the top uses an anti-clockwise, circular flow to put the pre-gate information in order. The ticket on the bottom uses linear flow from left to right to place the information in order.
Solution
Before
After
Layout
We enhanced the hierarchy of the information on the ticket using more white space and a grid system.
Content
We divided the content into two sections - left and right - using a the dotted line and designed each section for the two user groups.
The left section of the ticket is for passengers. By following the diagram on the bottom row from left to right, the passenger can know their flight number, boarding time, and gate number. Then they can focus on the column left to the line to see their seating information. The passengers may fold the ticket down the dotted line to focus on the left of the ticket or to make it smaller and more portable.
The right section of the ticket is for non-passengers, like flight attendants and security guards. For them, they can focus on the information left to the dotted line needed to quickly identify the passenger at the gate without having to scan the entire ticket.
The left section of the ticket is for passengers. By following the diagram on the bottom row from left to right, the passenger can know their flight number, boarding time, and gate number. Then they can focus on the column left to the line to see their seating information. The passengers may fold the ticket down the dotted line to focus on the left of the ticket or to make it smaller and more portable.
The right section of the ticket is for non-passengers, like flight attendants and security guards. For them, they can focus on the information left to the dotted line needed to quickly identify the passenger at the gate without having to scan the entire ticket.
Takeaways
I wished to conduct an in-depth research on designing for visual impairment and experiment on how to design a visual artifact like this ticket to be more inclusive and accessible for more users. For instance, I would have loved to learn more about the appropriate color contrast and adding Braille to print design.
A feedback we received was that the user's flight experience doesn't end when they arrive at the destination but may extend as they reflect back on their trip. Therefore, we would have liked to designed a more visually unique ticket so the passenger might like to possess the ticket and make the journey more memorable.