Dear iOS & Android,

Please fix this garbage.

How impossibly stupid is it that the only time that you are ever—EVER—explicitly told that you can’t use your phone’s Airplane Mode is when you’re actually sitting on an airplane?

“Airplane Mode is not enough; your phones have to be turned all the way off,” says every poor flight attendant across the entire country, for every flight, every day, as planes are preparing for takeoff.

Look, I get why this setting is secretly brilliant. Modern smartphones depend on a steady signal connection in order to update mountains of inane app updates, tweets, emails, whatever. When this connection is lost, the phones are designed to exhaust all effort possible to reestablish connection—which is fine if you’ve, say, stepped into an elevator and you’re in the middle of a thing. But it’s a battery-crippling disaster if you’re somewhere like an airplane. Airplane Mode turns off most of the signal transmitting functions while still affording people the opportunity to keep their phone on so they play Angry Birds or whatever the hell.

You have to fix this.

See, I can’t blame the users here. You’ve clearly designed this feature to give them the impression that it’s acceptable for use on airplanes—there’s that neat little airplane logo that you utilize, and the whole using the word “Airplane” in the name thing. People have been trained for millenia to pick up on those sorts of signals. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for an average consumer to conclude that Airplane Mode is an appropriate alternative for the flight attendants’ hopeless “turn all your stuff off, for the love of god, I’m begging you” plea.

I’m certainly not asking the airline people for help. They’ve demonstrated sufficient evidence of significant mental trauma already. That’d be a hopeless endeavor. So it’s you guys.

I don’t want to ask for much. For sure, you all might be able to invent a smarter algorithm for checking data signals. But that sounds like a lot of work, and I’m not technologically sophisticated enough to make a sound recommendation here. So how about this: Turn your airplane logos into traincar images, and re-brand your feature as “Subway Mode.”

Thanks.

(One first-world problem down, infinity to go.)

Yesterday, I investigated the travel bag, and re-framed the problem of designing a travel bag that best suits the size and portability needs of modern tourists to also include the needs of several other parties involved, including airlines, airports, and airplanes.

Here’s a creative matrix I used to brainstorm some ideas.

Along the X axis, I asked myself questions critical to the value proposition for each of the stakeholders. Along the Y axis, I listed the most likely levers available to drive change. Then I used my brain for 15 minutes.

Once those ideas were down, I sorted them chronologically by importance—in other words, “how likely is it that this idea will result in a significantly improved overall travel experience?” From there, I ranked by ease/affordability, with the most points going towards ideas that might have the lowest cost barriers. I could have been wrong at any point. Then, I found a sum using a skill called “basic mathematics.”

Interestingly, seven of the fourteen ideas I’d come up with all received a fairly high allocation of points (20+) and as such might merit future consideration. At the conclusion of my rankings, I was surprised to find that altering an entire culture—the idea to eliminate the norm of bringing overhead bags—was only the sixth most expensive idea to implement. But to be fair, I did come up with a few especially strange ideas. Having circus muscle men to help people load luggage in overheads would be pretty funny.

With these in mind, I came up with a pair of possible product prototypes.

Solution Alternative #1: The top of the travel bag detaches and doubles as your TSA bin.

First, I focused on the top two ideas: TSA branded, approved product and a travel bag with TSA security parts (bins, liquid baggies) built in. It seems likely that the two might be built in chorus.

One critical aspect the two have in common is that they address a human problem. For the former: Airline passengers hate the TSA. They’re the enemy. People feel personally violated by the TSA (probably because they physically are personally violated). It seems like the TSA exists with the sole purpose of making things slow and difficult. As a result, the passengers treat the security process like they’d treat anything they don’t like: begrudgingly. Many are willfully ignorant of TSA officers’ requests to remove belts or jewelry, or otherwise partake in assorted small acts of anarchy.

Aside from potential advances in check-in rapidity, a TSA-approved luggage series might provide another more important benefit: an olive branch, and the notion that the TSA actually wants a speedy, painless process just as much as the passengers do!

As for enhancing rapidity: What are the true causes of such lengthy lines at the security check step of the travel process? My first thought goes to the exhaustive laundry list of demands that the TSA has created (ziplock bags for all liquids, separate crate for laptops, etc.), but I assume these are immobile—in fact, I felt these were so entrenched that I (perhaps foolishly) actively chose not to address this issue in my creative matrix. My gut’s next instinct is to blame the on-site TSA team…but upon reflection, I don’t think they’re necessarily the second biggest contributing factor to lag. Checking passengers’ ID and processing them through the human-size metal detector are I think actually fairly speedy processes. I think lag comes in as a result of the way passengers pack and unpack their bags.

While queuing for the metal detector, passengers must unpack hurriedly and haphazardly. Quickly, I must stuff my shoes, belt, cellphone, wallet, jacket, travel size shampoo, toothpaste and more into one bin, while unzipping my carry-on to remove the laptop which must get stored in a second bin. Moments later on the other side of the metal detector, I have to undo this entire process. Awesome times.

Bags can move slowly through the carry-on metal detector and may need to be re-screened by the TSA expert. Why? Because the inside of a typical travel bag is a mess. Check out what these guys have to sift through. I couldn’t find Waldo in here, much less a concealed weapon. The TSA officer has to sift through piles of junk to try and detect anything suspicious, and there’s no way she might standardize this process.

A TSA-approved travel bag could feasibly solve both these problems at once. With consideration under the guidelines of subtraction and closed-world conditions: What if the airport didn’t provide bins? What if all we had to work with was our travel bag itself?

I made a very crude mock-up. Seriously, the most crude mock up of all time.

The idea is as such: When you arrive at the metal detectors, you simply detach the top of your travel bag and flip it upside-down to use as a bin. In my vision, the inside of the top might be stitched with suitable elastic bands and clear baggies, or otherwise have explicitly designated cubbies for most of the core pressure-point items, such as my laptop and toothpaste. This gives the TSA agent an easy rubric to follow and check against for aberration. As this type of bag proliferates, there’s reduced need for bins, which means reduced clutter, transactional labor and friction.

On the other side of the equation, this solution relieves me of the burden of having to open and sift through a bunch of things—critical items would be proactively packed neatly and accessibly. I’d envision this top might not have to be attached to the bag by much more than a few straps of Velcro—sturdy enough to withstand the modest rigors of commute and overhead storage, easy enough to undo and redo in a flash without even requiring precision. Before the final product is publicly unveiled, I’d foresee numerous iterations here in order to cater to style and personal security needs, etc., but at some level, the bag should devolve to “TSA mode,” which might only need to hold up long enough for you to get from the metal detector to your gate before you armor up.

Reaching back into my bag of ideas, this might be a clever way to simultaneously implement expert traveler fastlanes. Allowing travelers toting TSA-approved luggage to use the first-class lane (or otherwise, a separate lane just below first class) would be a terrific way to align TSA and passenger interests, rewarding patrons who seek to expedite the process and creating value for both parties.

Solution #2: Travel bags contoured for overhead storage.

More crude mock-ups!

The idea here is that many airlines use a very specific set of planes in order to increase operating efficiencies, and as such, probably very readily know what the overhead storage capacity is for their fleet. JetBlue comes to mind as an airline that only flies two different models of plane. Could they not design and propagate a carry-on bag that fits perfectly?

Similar to the TSA problems above, much of the lag in boarding planes is the result of human error. We pack enormous carry-on suitcases hoping to avoid checked baggage fees. In fact, often enough, an overhead bag that fit perfectly on one plane can be too large for the overhead on another—yet how should we know? Rampant is the problem of customers squandering time and holding up the entire boarding process by trying to shove these bags into the overhead, worse still the time and effort exhausted when an oversized bag must be taken from the cabin and moved into the checked luggage post-facto.

Suppose JetBlue said “this bag will definitely fit into our planes.” Oversized bags: eliminated. Bags checked post-facto: eliminated. Customer confidence, happiness, and loyalty: skyrocketing. If I know my bag is guaranteed to fit JetBlue, and I don’t want to invest in a whole portfolio of bags catered to each airline, I’m overwhelmingly more likely to seek JetBlue flights.

One interesting correlated thought: As far as I can remember, the overhead storage space in most or all planes is shaped like a trapezoid (like the mock-ups above). Why is the standard profile shape of a carry-on bag rectangular? My guess is that this is to aid stacking and shipping. But a carry-on travel bag should never need to be stacked…so is the rectangle necessary? Generally, the clothing on the inside will be folded and stacked to meet a rectangular profile; is the bulbous part of the luggage’s profile rendered useless? Or could it be used to store my toothpaste, hair gel, and other odd essentials?

Perhaps, ideally, this bulbous part could be used as the aforementioned TSA tray, and we might kill two birds with one stone.

How can we make travel bags better?

In the past few years, we’ve seen several significant shifts in the way Americans approach and experience airline travel. Low-cost point-to-point airlines are more commonplace, personal electronics devices have proliferated, oil prices have spiked, and security measures have heightened—among a multitude of other trends. Each development has brought about new policies and procedures employed by airlines, airports, and passengers, resulting in an experience that may seem highly foreign for a traveler from even twenty years ago. Everyone is now a terrorist who hides explosives in his laptop, belt, and shoes—unless you’re under 12 years old, in which case apparently shoe-based weapons have been ruled out as a possibility.

The common travel bag, on the other hand, has not seen change commensurate with the rapid evolution of the travel process. The last time bags got a significant upgrade was when the wheel was invented implemented.

My Goal: Design a travel bag that better suits the size and portability needs of the modern tourist.

At first glance, the above trends have the following primary direct implications:

1. Shorter trips, which call for lighter luggage loads, are more commonplace
2. Travelers often tote laptops, which need to be inspected separately by security
3. It is now commonplace for airlines to charge additional fees for checked luggage because “high oil prices”

And the following primary indirect implications:

1. Much higher percentage of passengers with two carry-on bags and zero checked bags
2. Longer lines at multiple stages of boarding process

Here’s a Journey Map of what it’s like to fly these days.

1. Home. I am packing clothes for my trip. I have some idea of how much I will need to pack, constrained by how many days my trip will last. I am explicitly limited by the physical capacity of my luggage. Generally, if an additional article of clothing will fit inside my bag, I will pack it. If it doesn’t fit, I’ll ask mom to come help me fold and fit everything better.
2. Transit to the airport. In Boston, the cab costs an unfathomable $40. I take public transit which costs about 45 minutes.
3. I get to the airport, which has a bunch of smaller steps. These could arguably be bundled together into “hate myself,” but for the sake of comprehensiveness:
   1. Arrive, wait in queue, and get boarding pass.
   2. Check larger luggage (if applicable).
   3. Queue for TSA and metal detectors.
   4. Arrive at gate, wait for boarding.
4. Board the plane, queue to reach my specific seat. Store carry-on luggage in overhead compartment or beneath seat.
5. Disembark, collecting luggage from overhead bins.
6. Leave airport, commute to final destination.

I’d consider four parties to be the primary players in the travel bag & airplane boarding process: The traveler, the luggage maker, the airport/security team, and the airline. They each have different objectives and relationships with the travel bag. Generally, I think a luggage maker might only design a bag to meet the needs of me, the traveler. An intelligently-designed travel bag, however, would make life better for everyone. (Isn’t that a generous thing for a travel bag to want to do?)

Problem Reframe: Can we design a Travel Bag that better suits the needs of all parties in the travel journey map—including not just travelers, but airlines, airports, and manufacturers, too?

Part II tomorrow with a few more pictures.