Who is this ticket designed for?
A few weeks ago, the ticket office in my home town changed the design of the cinema tickets. They had used the old design for years, and they changed the design without asking the cinema audience how a good ticket should be.
In this post I want to look at how the information is organised on the old and the new tickets and show the importance of designing for your user. Let’s take a look at the previous ticket:
The previous ticket with annotations in red
What kind of information do your users need?
In the old ticket design, information such as title, cinema room, date/time and row/seat are readily available at a glance. A person going to the cinema wants to know where to go. By looking at this ticket they know they have the ticket for the right show, and in which room and seat they are supposed to go to.
Ticket checkers want to know that the customer has the right ticket (I know this because I used to work as one). They are interested in the film title, the time and the date. Sometimes people arrive with tickets for the next or previous day, and of course their seats are taken. It is also important that the checkers can get this information with a quick glance because there are often hundreds of tickets to check. The old design features large print, which makes it easy for both customers and ticket checkers to get the information they want quickly.
On the new ticket, however, it looks as if no thought has gone into the users:
The new ticket design features small print and disorganised information
Making it difficult for your users
This design creates several difficulties for both user groups. To begin with, the small print is harder to read. Important information such as cinema room is hidden at the bottom of the ticket. There is no use knowing your seat number if you don’t know which room you need to go to.
There is a lot of white space around the title, but the condensed type is hard to read. In addition, this ticket has a grey background which doesn’t contrast well with the black type.
Another difference is that on the new ticket the cinema name is highlighted with white on black type, making this the most important piece of information in the hierarchy. On the old design, this information is made less important—as it should be.
But it’s not all bad, is it?
The new design has a few useful additions, such as end time and age restriction. However, they have removed the information about when and where the ticket was bought. This information is helpful for the ticket checkers when dealing with double bookings.
Although the old design is better, it is not perfect. The room, row and seat information could be together. I would perhaps have placed the date and time beneath the title, but these are minuscule problems compared to the new design.
The old cinema ticket (left) and the new ticket (right)
What can we learn from this?
It is clear that the company has not asked the people who actually use the ticket how it could best be designed. There are several things they should have done before deciding on the new ticket:
- Design with the user in mind. This means ask the user.
- Make sure it’s easy to find the important information.
- Write in big letters and use contrast for good readability.
What do you think? Do you have any other comments about the tickets and their design, or maybe you can share something about your tickets?
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There are 7 great responses to Who is this ticket designed for?:
What do you think?
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on March 20th, 2009
Hej Eivind!
It’s interesting that you are discussing this. I am working as a ticket checker at “Kulturhuset”, and I always see that our customers are having the same problem every time they are visiting us. We have four entrances (ABCD) divided on two floors which leads to frustrations – both for our customers and also for us ticket checkers. We have approximately 15minutes to check 650 tickets and it’s no way that you can check that everyone is on the right entrance so we “take it for good fish” that they came to the right one. This again leads to some problems; someone that was going to be on the second floor came in the first. It is not BIG problems, but when you have just 15minutes you want everything to go as smooth as possible. So this leads to one of my conclusions’ which is that the place of purchase should be bigger.
I totally agree on that the old color was better because of the contrasts.
It can be nice to know the end time of your cinema, but age restriction, is that necessary? What is this good for? If you already got the ticket what are you then going to use this for?
And it’s really important what you say about “ask the users”, and by that ask the customers, but don’t forget the other once like ticket checker and the ticket sellers. What will make things easier? The thing is that the customers are there to watch a show or a cinema so everything before should go as easy as possible.
This was just some quick thoughts.
on March 22nd, 2009
Hei Andreas!
Thank you for your insightful comment. I agree with you, and I think that what needs to be emphasised is where the customer is supposed to go (Cinema 1 or Door B etc.). That’s all really. Everything else is uninteresting compared to that.
I agree that the ticket checkers should have been asked how their job could be easier. I find that if the checkers can see what they need quickly (date, time and location), the experience is also smoother for the audience.
I think the age restriction is there because it’s the ticket checkers at the cinema who checks that. With the age on the ticket, they cannot say ‘I didn’t know…’, but I agree. It’s one piece of information that doesn’t need to be there.
I am happy to see that someone else are interested in discussing the design of cinema tickets :)
on July 1st, 2009
Hi Eivind !
I’ am design student, I ‘am doing research about the Cinema tickets, for my project, I want to find a design problem in old ticket, and to create a new ticket to overcome that problem.
Help me with this question
why the shape of the ticket is not changing? mostly they are using rectangle shape.
why the colored fount is not used in the tickets?
How can I make an interactive ticket?
How can I make it as a successful design?
what kind of research i had to do?
on July 1st, 2009
Hey Eivind, (and Sarath)
You have some questions that I will try to answer, I am not an expert and not a design student, but I will try to answer them from my perspective.
When you ask why not change the shape of the ticket - well I think we people are “afraid” of changes. Meaning that I don’t think it is a good idea to change something drasticly. If you open a new cinema - well, then you can do whatever you would like. But as soon as people are used of one way they will be hysteric if it changes. I work both as a ticket checker at a theater and as a trafic assistent for SAS Airlines. Lately we have been changing some thing at SAS and when people see something they aren’t used of they “freak out”. Also it can be a problem if one cinema changes - while the other ones keeps the “standard”.
Colors could be a good - and easy way to seperate entrances and/or cinemas. That you give the different cinemas different colors (I know that the different cinemas have different colors in Tromsø, but they don’t use it for other than visually)
When it comes to make it interactive - I have an idea, but I am sorry that I cant write about it here on this open web-page. Because of novelty and stuff - but I hope to come back to you in a later stage when my ide hopefully is more developed. (Eivind - if you give me your mail it could have been cool to listen to your opinion. But then I have to know that it will be between our mails. You should have been written a non discloser agreement , but since I know you - I trust you that much ;) hehe…)
What kind of research you should do - well talk to the customers! Ask them what do you think of the ticket? What information would you like to have on your ticket?
AND..ask the ticket chekers!! What can make their job easier. As a ticket cheker you are “only in the way” - you are one more obstakle on the way for the customers to get to see the show/movie etc so it should go as smooth and quick as possible.
Hope that I gave some answers that you can “use”.
If not please contact me/us =)
on July 2nd, 2009
hi Andreas Nilsen !
Thank you for your comment,
will you tell me how the future ticket going to be…
on July 3rd, 2009
Hi Sarath and Andreas
Sarath: You have some interesting questions, and I think some of the answers can be found by looking at the equipment used and the cost of printing.
I believe most cinemas have a rectangular ticket simply because the printer they use is a standard one (and therefore more cost-effective to purchase). The reason the print is usually not coloured is also because of cost. Printing in one colour is cheaper than printing with more colours.
To make a succesful design for tickets I recommend you have a look at the usability aspect of design. You may have some books on it at your school library, or do a search on the net. Information hierarchy is the key to any successful design. Find out what the most important information on the ticket should be, and make that stand out. Also think about what information reallyneeds to be on it.
Andreas: Thank you for your comment. It is a very good point that people are afraid of what they are not used to. Just look at all the ‘change it back please’ groups on facebook that pops up every time they change something!
on July 3rd, 2009
HI Eivind,
Thanks for your valuable comment on my questions.