If you’ve ever flown on Southwest Airlines you are well aware that their open seating policy is very different than any other airline. While it may feel like a cattle call from time-to-time, you may not be aware that the study of ant colonies played a significant role in changes to Southwest’s method of seating.
In 2007, a surge of complaints from Southwest customers concerning their seating method spurred the company to assess the situation and consider assigning seats. In Peter Miller’s book “The Smart Swarm” he profiles the work of Doug Lawson, Southwest’s manager of financial analysis. According to Lawson, “the best way to determine whether assigned seating would be faster was to create a computer simulation of passengers boarding a plane, and then try out one pattern after the other. Other airlines had done more or less the same thing over the years. But Lawson’s plan had a difference — it was based on the behavior of ants.”
Why ants? Ant colonies have this innate ability to solve large scale problems by breaking up the responsibility and assigning tasks to the colony. Southwest studied how an ant colony would solve their seating problem.
While Southwest’s study ultimately determined that assigned seating was faster by a minute, the company decided that it wasn’t significant enough to change their method of seating. But what did change was competition for seating. Prior to Southwest’s current A, B, or C line method of seating, a passenger would be seated first-come, first-serve. Meaning passengers arrived much earlier to wait in line. Gone are the days of arriving hours early and standing in line at the gate – that’s now relegated for security checks.
Earlier this year, I shared with readers my fascination with the idea of how the work of web architects and building architects merge. I shared how often the biggest hurdle for a visitor to your church is to step through the door for the first time. Imagine walking into a room of strangers — what questions might they be asking themselves?
- Are there people like me here?
- Am I dressed right?
- Where’s the sanctuary?
- And most importantly, where do I go next?
That’s where visual cues come into play. You have the opportunity to relay a sense of the familiar by presenting common visual cues in your building — ultimately easing the first time visitor’s level of anxiety. Through the use of visual cues like typography, choice of colors, graphics, etc., you can help guide the first time visitor through an experience rather than an endless maze.
My challenge for you is to imagine yourself as a first time visitor to your church this Sunday. As you walk in the building, ask yourself, do the visual cues easily direct you to the sanctuary, the appropriate classroom, etc.?
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