Dartmouth ID Redesign

Now, I've done a fair amount of work in regards to the Dartmouth ID, but mainly in terms of duplicating/replicating it. I've made a fair amount of progress, and you can see some of the early work and the updates by clicking on the links. However, this article is about a possible redesign on the current ID. This is what the current ID look like.

It holds a lot of information:

• Name of the college
• School colors
• School crest
• Student information for easy identification
  • Image of student
  • Student tag
  • Full name
  • Birth date
  • Student year (and UG or G classification)
• DiD (Net ID) - Used for logging in, general web authentication
• Dash ID - Used for discretionary account
• Issue date
• Hinman barcode number
• Hinman barcode

However, a lot of the information is redundant (why do we need three individual specific numbers and who needs to know the issue date), it's not easily identifiable as what year you are (for grade specific events/the six week ban for freshman), and it's overall just not very attractive. However, most of the information should be kept. Some of it can be compacted however.

First off, reduce the identifiers down to the DiD. The others are meaningless. With 7 digits that can be any number or capital letter, there are 78 billion possible combinations. It's not like they're running out. Even with the first three digits locked (as they appear to be now), that's still 1.5 million combinations, which is more than enough for 1000 generations of Dartmouth students (at the current class size).

Secondly, combine the personal information to one area. It makes it easier to quickly scan and see who you are.

Thirdly, change the barcode to be the DiD, and make it a 2D QR code with Dartmouth logo in the middle instead of the crest.