We recently learned that Frontier Airlines is making a small, but significant, change to the times displayed on their boarding passes. As ABC News explains it, "Frontier Airlines has decided to eliminate the departure time from boarding passes, and will instead list 'boarding begins' and 'doors close' on the boarding passes." Many outlets presented this news with surprise. My initial reaction was surprise followed quickly by skepticism. Without a departure time, how will anyone know what to do when? But then I put on my designer hat and realized that I really like this design decision.
I like this decision because it's clearly aimed at reducing mistakes by customers. As Don Norman explains in THE DESIGN OF EVERYDAY THINGS, "Mistakes result from the choice of inappropriate goals." When someone makes a mistake, he says, "the information available was probably incomplete or misleading." In this case, passengers are making the mistake of arriving at the gate so late as to delay the flight. Why? Because they have poor information about when to arrive. Recognizing this problem, Frontier's design aims to minimize mistakes two ways:
- Remove extraneous information that might confuse - When you think about it, the anticipated departure time of the aircraft is virtually irrelevant to the traveler. It will leave when it leaves, depending on how fast it's loaded and pushes back (among other things). What matters is when you get on board and when you arrive. Thus, by removing the departure time, Frontier is removing a major piece of information that doesn't tell the whole story, possibly misleading customers into thinking they have more time than they do to get to the gate and get on board.
- Don't assume all customers have the same information - Experienced flyers know how to use the flight's scheduled departure time to figure out their schedules vis à vis their flight. This is why I reacted to the news with skepticism. When I see a departure time I immediately subtract about 30 minutes to get the boarding time. Clearly others (novices? occasional flyers?) don't make this calculation, or get it wrong for whatever reasons. Thus, Frontier has moved to eliminate this lack of knowledge as a source of error by clearly stating the times that matter. Now all customers have the same, necessary information to make the right decision regardless of their experience level.
As I said, I think this small change to boarding passes by Frontier is a great design decision. They have created a design that the minimizes mistakes made by a few that end up impacting many. New boarding passes with clear information that helps customers make the right decision about when to head to the gate is a change that will benefit all passengers.
Are there ways that you can reduce errors in your product or service through good design? What information are you giving your customers or users that they don't need? What choices or calculations are you asking them to make that they might get wrong?