UniversityTickets
The Importance of Barcode Redundancy on PDF Tickets
UniversityTickets was a live-event ticketing platform for universities.
Barcodes on print-at-home PDF tickets were not scannable, causing delays with attendee entrance to events. My solution was to increase the number of barcodes in strategic locations which resulted in a 15% average increase in tickets scanned.
Highlights
MY ROLE
UI/UX Designer
TEAM
Leo Vogel, CTO, 1 Developer
TOOLS
EMPLOYER
UniversityTickets
TIMELINE
4 Months
4 Common Problems
Attendee entrance was slowed down due to barcodes not being scannable.
Covering
Mis-Printing
Folding
Smudging
Key information difficult to quickly locate on the tickets visually.
Customer’s Name
Quickly finding the customer's name is important for greeting attendees at the door.
Event Title
Attendees need to know that they are bringing the tickets to the correct event.
Seating Location
This is important so staff and customers can easily locate their correct seat.
Design
🔢 Increase Barcode Redundancy
Created draft layouts with 3 QR barcodes that avoided common fold lines.
🗂️ Improved Information Hierarchy
Improved structure of the key information of seat location, ticket type, ticket number, and customer name so that it was easy to find.
👥 Integrate Team Feedback
Removed map to make room for more client content and reduced info boxes to two key points.
📊 Test with Real Data
Discovered that ticket option and ticket type name content areas needed to be enlarged.
Iterations
First Concept
Final Concept
Ideas
🔢 Increase redundancy
Added multiple barcodes and barcode data in strategic locations.
📨 Encourage party ticket distribution
Add instructions to users for each person in their group to be holding their own ticket.
✨ Better event branding
Automatically show client's primary brand color or event's category color and include an event image.
🪜 Elevate important information
Improve information hierarchy to make finding customer name, seating information, and event details easier.
Solutions
1. Added Barcode Redundancy
Adding barcodes and avoiding common fold lines fixes the scanning problem.
Fold lines shown in red.
Scanning issues fixed:
2. Improved Readability
Customer name, event name, seating information, and ticket type are all easier to find in dedicated locations and visual styles.
Old Ticket
New Ticket
The Improved PDF Ticket Launched in August 2016
Results
15% increase in tickets scanned!
The number of tickets scanned increased 15% as a result of the new ticket design—which is now being used by over 200 colleges and universities across the USA and Canada, including MIT.
Takeaways
- Contextual observation can uncover big, unknown problems.
- When a digital file becomes a physical object, unexpected issues can arise.
- Design for extremes, not the ideal. Decide how to accommodate content that exceeds available space.
- Leverage existing data to inform design decisions. By analyzing the longest and average text lengths for text content I was able to design a ticket that would work better for most clients.
Areas for future exploration
1. Alternate Layouts
I would like to add alternate layout options that clients can choose from, to offer more flexibility. A quarter-folded layout that looks like a mini book is something I’d like to explore.
2. Research Unique Needs of 4 Main Client Types
I would research the different E-Ticket needs of the four main client types: theater, student activities, athletics, and graduations. Perhaps offering an E-Ticket layout tailored to the needs of each would be better than a single layout balancing the needs of all four.
3. Additional Analysis
For additional measures of success I would have liked to compare two events at the same school of equal size using the original and the new e-ticket designs. I would compare the amount of time a user spends in line, user satisfaction with ease of finding their seat, and number of times a scanner's laser is activated vs number of times a barcode is successfully scanned.
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