Redesigning the Delta Boarding Pass

Original Design

For this homework assignment we were to take the boarding pass below and redesign it:

My Redesign

My design assumes that the passenger gets this boarding pass at the check-in counter or kiosk, and the stub on the right is torn off and handed to the passenger at the gate. The information hierarchy is organized to make it quick to find the most important information at every part of the way from the check-in counter to the seat.

Left side - information needed before passing the gate

When passengers get the boarding pass and head for the gate, the thing they most frequently reference is the gate number. This is the largest element on the left. Since the passenger must know when to arrive at the gate, the next most important things are the boarding and departure times; this is displayed in large text in the middle.

All the information security and gate workers would need to know is next to each other at the bottom of the boarding pass, including ticket number, barcodes, and if the passenger is TSA PreCheck.

Right side - information needed at the gate and after passing it

Once they are at the gate and are ready to board, the most important information is on the stub the passenger would carry. The zone which determines when to board is displayed in large letters on the right. As the passenger boards the plane, the seat is the most important, and is displayed as such on the stub.

The ticket number is on the stub since it could be needed in the future for the case the passenger needs to reference it in a situation such as lost baggage or getting miles that were not provided.

Once the stub is ripped off the passenger is already on their way into the plane from the gate; the gate number is not important and is left out.

Omitted information

The baggage numbers were omitted as often it can be the case that the passenger checks many bags, it would be impossible to cleanly fit on here. These days when you check bags with delta they hand you baggage tags for each bag, which can be used to keep track of them.

The departure airport was omitted because that information should be obvious.