When "You're checked in!" means the passenger thinks they're done — but three hidden steps remain.
Fragmented touchpoints fail passengers at the moments that matter most
Errors cluster under cognitive load — not carelessness or ignorance
Focus: Discoverability, Broken Mappings & Gulfs of Evaluation
Bag-drop cutoffs and gate changes are buried in confirmation emails — never surfaced at the airport. Users cannot find what they don't know to look for. The system offers no proactive guidance at the moment of need.
Every touchpoint confirms its own action — but never the whole journey. The app says "checked in." The bag-drop counter says nothing. No system tells the passenger their window is about to close.
"You're checked in!" implies completion but maps to the wrong reality. Check-in is step one of five — but the green checkmark and boarding pass signal arrival when three physical steps remain invisible.
No cross-system progress indicator exists anywhere. Passengers cannot tell where they actually stand. The gulf only closes when staff inform them the window is already closed — feedback that arrives precisely too late.