Designing an Efficient TSA Security Kiosk Interface
The Problem
During peak travel season at International Airport, TSA officers (TSOs) manually verify thousands of passenger IDs daily. The process is repetitive, time-consuming, and prone to human-error security gaps. Manual verification strains TSOs, reduces situational awareness, and creates bottlenecks.
The Solution
A user interface for a new state-of-the-art facial recognition passenger self-verification mobile kiosk that is faster (10x speed) and more accurate (99.88% vs. human variability). Permitting TSOs to simply monitor passengers and assist only when needed. Freeing them up to focus on situational threats.
My Role
As the UX Designer on the Product Incubation team at NEC, I lead the end-to-end UX design. Enabling an increase in TSA operation efficiency, passenger security throughput, and boost in security.
The Team:
> Product Manger
> Solution Architect
> Software Engineer
> UX Designer
Methods:
> User Research
> Workflow Mapping
> Wire-Framing
> Interface Design
Value Unlocked:
> 33%↑ TSA Efficiency (1 vs 3 TSOs/kiosk)
> 30%↑ Verifications (60 vs 20/hr)
> 99.98% Accuracy vs Human Variability.
> Security up, TSOs focus on situational threats.
Type:
B2B Product Design
Timeline:
6 months
How might we design a kiosk user interface that enables passengers to self-verify so that TSOs are freed-up to focus on situational safety?
The Strategy
A people first approach. I worked closely with the Product Manager and Solution Architect (travel industry SMEs) to establish a foundation of understanding, define requirements, and execute design. By leading this collaborative Design Thinking approach we unlocked operation efficiency, faster verification, and boost in security.
How we did it
Operational Efficiency
With a quick view user interface, 1 TSO could monitor up to 3 kiosks vs 1, freeing up TSA resources.
Verification Rate
A simple 3-step user flow, reduced the verification process from 3 to 1 minute, increasing passenger security throughput.
Boosted Security
An end-to-end UX unlocked a 99.98% verification accuracy, letting TSOs prioritize likely threats. Unruly emotionally charged passengers.
Who are we designing for?
I leaned on the Product Manager’s and Solution Architect’s domain knowledge to set the baseline user understanding.
TSA Officer
Works extended hours on a lower pay scale, often during nights and holidays, under significant pressure to balance strict security measures with efficient passenger movement.
Needs
- Accurately inspect passenger documents.
- Maintain passenger throughput.
- Quickly react to situational threats.
Insight
TSOs need to reduce cognitive load caused by repetitive verifications tasks to focus on situational threats.
Travel Passenger
Travelers of all backgrounds, some struggling with language differences, often exhausted by long journeys and lengthy queues, while anxiously navigating tight flight connections.
Needs
- Minimize in-line waiting fatigue.
- Make it to their flight without delays.
- Feel safe & secure in a crowded airport.
Insight
Passengers desire to quickly move through TSA security. Requiring a fast and intuitively simple verification process.
The User Benefits of the Solution
Through a collaborative workflow mapping workshop, the team and I outlined the current and target process. Visualizing the verification process time reduction, thanks to near-instant highly accurate facial recognition and frees up TSOs with self-verification.
Passenger Benefits
- Faster security line (3 to 1 minute verification process).
- Minimized of stress and likelihood of missed flights.
- Increased sense of safety (highly accurate identification).
TSO Benefits
- 99.98% identification accuracy with no slow down.
- Up to 60 highly accurate verifications per hours vs 20.
- Cognitive strain reduction, increased focus on situation threats.
Constraints and Requirements
At this point, we were clear on who we are designing for and how they benefit from the solution. But before defining the screens, we needed to understand the current setup and constraints.
Existing Solution
Passenger verification solutions exist in the market. Our solution needed to fit within the user’s mental model. Else we risk creating friction, delays, and stress. The opposite of what users and the business needed.
Baseline Screens
At the core, passenger flow was to follow a similar flow as existing solutions.
- Scan Travel Credential
- Scan Boarding Pass
- Verify Passenger’s Face
Top Requirements
Keep it Simple
A 3 step intuitive passenger verification interface would enable a 1 minute verification process.
Maintain Familiarity
TSOs don’t need to spend time learning a new UI, we need to maintain a similar TSO screen layout and flow.
Quick View Mode
To minimize cognitive load and boost awareness, TSOs may monitor multiple kiosks hands-free.
Complex to Simple
Achieving a simple 3 step passenger flow required continuous cross-function collaboration. Multiple user paths and possibilities needed to be accounted for. Each with various errors and notifications for the TSO to address.
The system orchestrated real-time validation across multiple layers: as passengers scanned their credentials, the TSO interface simultaneously cross-referenced data with STIP (for document authenticity) and SecureFlight (for threat assessment). Each validation failure triggered context-specific alerts—requiring dynamic UI logic to display precise failure reasons (e.g., document tampering vs. no-fly list match) without overwhelming operators.
Formulating the Interface Designs
Leveraging the baseline screens for the interface design, we were able to cycle through iterative design sprints. Designing, reviewing with the core team, and updating until attaining a collective 75+% level of confidence to start integration into the kiosk.
Quick View Mode
Finally, to permit TSOs to monitor multiple kiosks, I designed high-contrast and recognizable status indicator screens. At quick glance, notifying TSOs, when the passenger verification is passing, there’s an error, system is waiting, or TSO assistance is needed.
Integrated User Experience
The kiosk interface was piloted, unlocking business and user value.
✓ 33%↑ Efficiency (1 vs 3 TSOs/kiosk)
✓ 30%↑ Verifications (60 vs 20/hr)
✓ Closed human-error security gaps
What went wrong?
This project was far from smooth sailing.
Engineers flagged latency.
Risking passenger queue buildup. My wireframes assumed near-instant verification. This resulted in the introduction of additional status screens (“Verifying…”) to manage wait-time expectations.
Non-english speakers struggled with wordy text instructions.
- Modified the passenger UI to use strong iconography with minimal text.
- Bring up the “Get Help” CTA after 30 seconds of no activity.
- While speed was praised, some requested more language options.
Key Takeaways
1Foundational research (even via SMEs/secondary data) was critical for understanding baseline experience.
2Using familiar UI elements (based on the existing solution) minimized passenger learning curves and TSO retraining.
3Frictionless UX enabled strategic automation freeing up human resources for higher-value tasks (e.g., threat detection) and improves accuracy.
4Aesthetic choices (e.g., status indicators) are instrumental in high-stakes environments where errors have serious consequences.