Some observations about information presentation and design at United Airlines’ check-in counter at Chicago O’Hare International.
There is a large video panel suspended above the queuing area for U.S. flights:
That panel displays the same 3-1-1 liquids policy slideshow loop that plays above the check-in machines:
It is a terrible waste of a large canvas.
Why not move departure information from its current location, which can only be read from the queuing area for international departures (and even then, not very well)
to that large screen? Or, if visibility is still a problem, how about these four LCD screens suspended above each queuing area that, again, are redundant:
Why not use those to display flight status? Result set faceting is built-in: if you’re queuing in the domestic flights area, you’re only going to want to see domestic departures. Sure, there’s more flights than will fit in a single page, but slow, periodic pagination through a result set might work to solve that problem. It’s not like queues move particularly quickly at O’Hare. (If they move at all.)
These changes would increase visibility of flight information for travelers. Sure, most people receive updates on mobile devices, but those can lag behind information displays in airports (at least, the updates I receive via United EasyUpdate do), and looking at a large, well-designed information display is much more convenient than busting out a mobile device and poking at it.
These changes would also assist travelers in making last-minute itinerary alterations, such as in the hypothetical scenario in which O’Hare and United jointly fuck everything up by cancelling loads of flights, booking you on a flight due to leave the next day at 6 AM, and only having three agents available for handling check-in and negotiating alternative flight solutions, thus instigating additional missed flights, impatience, two-hour-long wait times and a reminder of why one should always expect failure from the US airline industry — and, indeed, any organization that doesn’t have a human face you can punch.
Just a thought.
