It's not magic. It'sMondeo Studio

Ben Gurion Airport

How we fixed the self-service chaos at Natbag Airport

Video & Motion|UX/UI
Redesigned kiosk screen: a green gate opening with arrows pointing the way through
Client logo
Ben Gurion Airport’s self-service border control kiosks were meant to speed things up: scan, match, go. Instead, they were sending travelers straight back to human officers: confused, frustrated, and wondering how the “high-tech system” in the “Start-Up Nation” couldn’t even recognize a passport photo.

Overview

The project

You’re jet-lagged. It’s 2AM.

You walk up to a shiny border control kiosk. There’s a screen playing a video you can barely see, instructions you don’t fully get. You place your passport... and nothing happens.

The video keeps looping. Maybe it’s trying to explain something? Maybe not. You tap the screen. Try again. Still nothing.

You sigh. Wave at a guard.

He points you to the back of a very long line.

Ugh..

The border control kiosk is the first thing travelers see when they land and the last thing they do before leaving the country. Not exactly the place you want confusion, delays, or a UX meltdown.

But that’s exactly what was happening at Natbag Airport.

“
Until Mondeo stepped in and redesigned the experience from the ground up.
”

A tired traveler holding a paper cup to his forehead in front of a departures board

What was
going wrong?

The original border control kiosk at Ben Gurion Airport

According to UX veteran Amit Daliot (who knows a broken flow when he sees one), two major issues kept causing trouble:

  • Passport placement fails

    Most users weren’t placing their passports correctly. The machine couldn’t match the photo page to their face, so the gate didn’t open.

  • Pick up your passport… eventually?

    After successful verification, travelers must remove their passport to open the gate. No one told them. The video doesn’t mention it. The on-screen message is too small to notice.

    The result? People just stood there… waiting.

A traveler placing a passport on the kiosk scanner
Border control gates with the face camera and green arrow signs

Notes from Amit Daliot’s
initial review

  • Low-contrast UI under harsh lighting

  • Missing guidance for core actions

  • One mistake = full process failure

  • No recovery paths for small errors

  • Total reliance on user guesswork

In other words: classic case of design ignoring reality.

A hand pressing an Israeli passport onto the scanner
The old kiosk screen showing where to place the hand
The kiosk camera with a printed sign taped below it

Our approach:
make it make sense

We rebuilt the entire instructional experience around what users actually do, not what we wish they’d do.

What we changed:

  • High-contrast visuals that work under any lighting

  • Audio + visual instructions in multiple languages

  • Final-step clarity so no one misses the passport pickup moment again

  • Step-by-step animated guidance, synced with system feedback

  • Immediate, intuitive feedback at every step

And (crucially) it all runs within the existing hardware and design constraints of the airport kiosks

Before: a hand holding a passport over the old kiosk scanner
After: the new kiosk screen animation showing the passport sliding into place

Prototyping
the invisible

We designed and tested multiple flows in the field, using real traveler behaviors to shape each iteration.

Solving the final step:
passport pickup

That awkward “why isn’t the gate opening?” moment? Gone.

We replaced the silent UI with an animated reminder and clear verbal cue. The traveler sees (and hears!) that they need to grab the passport.

The gate opens. They move on.

The new kiosk screen asking the traveler to take the passport

The double gate
dilemma

Some stations had a second challenge: double gates, designed to stop two people from sneaking through at once. Instead, it confused everyone. We broke the flow into a simple, comic-style visual story, displayed directly on the machine.

Each step, one action

One action, one response.

People got it instantly.

A boy walking up to a double gate with the new step-by-step screens

The results

Even without an official press release, we saw the impact immediately:

  • Passport placement errors dropped significantly

  • Fewer travelers needed staff intervention

  • Lines moved faster, flows stayed smooth

  • Travelers didn’t notice the UX, which means it worked

The bottom line:
design is in the details

Border control isn’t just security. It’s also one of the few moments where you ask people to follow exact instructions under stress, jet lag, or a language barrier.

That’s not just a design challenge. That’s a design responsibility. We designed a UX so clear, it fades into the background. Because the best UX? You don’t even notice it’s there.

A wall of the new kiosk screens: gates opening, stop signs, passport and boarding pass steps

Building something people must use right, even at 2AM? Let’s make it make sense.

Let’s talk!
Two of the new gate screens: blue with an information sign, and green with the gate open