What does it mean for a choice to feel effortless— and when does ease become a substitute for understanding?

In 2024, United Airlines began scaling its biometric platform, Touchless ID, beyond security checkpoints to bag drop. The promise was simple: make the check-in process as seamless as walking through. But as we learned through our research, simplicity isn’t always simple.

While the technology worked flawlessly, adoption lagged behind. Travelers weren’t resisting convenience — they were deliberating in the dark. The deeper question wasn’t why aren’t they using it? but how do travelers make sense of something meant to eliminate the need for sense-making?

Background

Touchless ID allows customers to move through key airport touchpoints using facial recognition rather than physical IDs. At security, adoption was strong; most travelers who used it once continued to do so regularly. But at bag drop, uptake was slower.

Our team set out to understand why a feature designed to save time could feel invisible to the very people it was built to help. We wanted to uncover what Touchless ID meant to travelers — not just as a tool, but as a choice in the choreography of their day-of-travel experience.

The Problem Space

Awareness wasn’t the only obstacle. This was a case of misrecognition, not misinformation.

While 87% of surveyed customers knew about Touchless ID enrollment, only 34% knew it could be used for bag drop. Fewer still realized it could replace the traditional ID-check interaction they associated with agent assistance.

Customers weren’t saying “no” to the technology. They were saying “yes” to a familiar narrative: the need to be seen, acknowledged, and guided through a system that’s both physical and digital, predictable yet uncertain.

Touchless ID’s challenge wasn’t one of function but of meaning: How do you design something that feels frictionless without erasing the very sense of orientation people rely on to feel in control?

Approach

We combined quantitative survey data (n = 994) with qualitative interviews and diary studies across multiple airports.

Rather than studying behavior in isolation, we studied deliberation:

• How travelers reason about efficiency and effort

• When they trust automation, and when they look for assurance

• What “ease” feels like when every airport interaction carries social and logistical stakes

Our aim was to understand the thresholds of comfort — when people stop needing to think, and when that absence of thought begins to feel risky.

Key Insights

1. Efficiency as a Form of Care

When travelers said they valued “efficiency,” they didn’t mean speed alone. They meant certainty. Eleven of sixteen interviewees explicitly described assistance as something that supports efficiency — reassurance that the process won’t fail them at the moment it matters most.

In other words, travelers don’t choose between speed and attention; they see true efficiency as a kind of care.

2. Misrecognition Over Misinformation

Many non-users didn’t misunderstand the concept of biometrics — they misunderstood the context.

“I like talking to an agent. I don’t want to have to hunt someone down if it doesn’t work.”

The irony was that Touchless ID was designed precisely to avoid those scenarios. The hesitation stemmed not from doubt about technology, but from uncertainty about when and how to use it. Misrecognition, not skepticism, was the barrier.

3. Ease Without Trust Isn’t Ease

Even frequent travelers needed cues of trust — a line, a sign, or a glance from an agent that said “you’re in the right place.”
Customers wanted to move freely, but not alone. They needed the system to mirror back their confidence.

The difference between anxiety and autonomy, we found, is acknowledgment.

4. Habit Formation Through Experience

Among those aware of Touchless bag drop, 45% said they always use it when available — and Premier flyers were twice as likely to return to Touchless as to Premier bag drop lines. Once travelers used it successfully, deliberation disappeared. Touchless ID had become the “default good” — an unthinking preference born from embodied trust.

Quantitative Validation

• 87% of survey participants were aware of enrollment in general

• 34% were aware of the bag drop application

• 45% of aware participants always use Touchless bag drop when available

• 48% of aware Premier flyers always use it, suggesting experience, not status, drives loyalty

• 13% said they choose based on “circumstances of convenience,” showing the fluid boundary between choice and habit

The Philosophical Layer

What emerged from this study was a subtle but important shift in how we think about design for autonomy.

Automation promises ease, but ease isn’t the same as understanding. Travelers aren’t simply optimizing time; they’re negotiating agency — deciding when to surrender control and when to reclaim it.

Touchless ID’s success, then, wasn’t only about streamlining movement through space. It was about preserving a traveler’s sense of presence — of knowing what’s happening, even when they no longer need to act.

As I wrote in my notes during the analysis phase:

“Adoption isn’t just a reduction in friction; it’s a recovery of confidence — the feeling that the system understands you, and that you understand what it’s doing on your behalf.”

Impact

Our findings reframed how the team approached both design and communication:

• Product Design: clearer wayfinding to Touchless-enabled bag drop stations and simplified app messaging

• Agent Training: new scripts and prompts to help agents guide customers to biometric options

• Marketing Focus: shifting emphasis from novelty to assurance — “the fastest way, with help if you need it”

• Future Testing: ongoing UX iterations on opt-in flows and enrollment prompts

Beyond the tactical, this work helped redefine what “effortless travel” means in a hybrid experience. The goal isn’t to make customers passive — it’s to make their deliberation meaningful.

Reflection

Touchless ID taught us that even technologies built to eliminate steps must still respect the step of understanding.

At its core, the question wasn’t how to make people use it but how to make them feel they still belong in the process.

Because in travel — as in life — we don’t just want to move smoothly through the world. We want to feel that we are still the ones moving.