A Traveler’s Friend: The Well-Designed Boarding Pass

A redesigned boarding pass? We can’t help but wonder how no one has tackled this before! Boarding passes, the traveler’s most familiar tool, remain as antiquated as the horse and buggy. Their size is inconvenient to a wallet, numbers are splashed at random and sometimes finding your gate and boarding time can take two or three glances — who has time for that?

One savvy designer, who has already made a name for himself for smarter, human design, took a stab at creating a solution.

Pete Smart focused on answering the following three “what if” questions:
-What if key information were more accessible?
-What if boarding passes felt less awkward to handle?
-What if boarding passes added value to your travel?

He’s been approached by several airlines about implementing his design, but as electronic boarding passes become the future, he also explained to NPR where the true value of his idea lies:

“The real value is in the question — what if we were able to improve the travel experience of people? How can we put people first and solve small, everyday problems along the way? You can apply that to every point in a person’s journey along the process. The boarding pass just exemplifies the principle — innovation starts when you ask simple questions of everyday things.”