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The new VirginAmerica.com

static.virginamerica.com

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Re: The new VirginAmerica.com

#131

Post by coldcode »

robertnealan wrote: post #87

From a design perspective this is one of the most beautiful airline booking designs I've ever seen, but from a usability perspective it might just be the worst (save for maybe RyanAir). The cities being laid out in a grid looks nice but is ultimately far more difficult to understand then just looking at an alphabetical list in a dropdown. Auto-picking your departure city based on your current location is admittedly a…

In the US at least the information presented to the customer for a flight booking is tightly controlled by the DOT. Lawyers fear getting a big fine for irritating the DOT by missing some requirement they just thought of, so generally things get conservative. Sites that pass off booking to someone else can do anything they want, sites that take money have to be DOT aware.

Re: The new VirginAmerica.com

#133

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

nailer wrote: post #124
qmr wrote: post #118

This is horrible and broken. Real information replaced with "flat" design and stupid hip made up words like "fun-erer". No javascript: http://i.imgur.com/8HkKyZx.png There is a delay of at least 100ms scrolling up and down between pages. I would guess 150ms. I do not see any obvious way of changing this, and the scroll bars are hidden. What if I need to change something at the top of the page? I also managed to break…

Accessible browsers run Javascript, and have for some time. You may have a point about CSS though.

I'd argue the other way.

Accessible websites are usable without JS. Maybe not pretty, but at least usable.

Re: The new VirginAmerica.com

#134

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

highwind wrote: post #75

Why is the password limited to 16 characters long? I don't understand this limitation on any of the sites.

The password length should be limited to something. 16 characters is rather short, though. (Still better than my old webmail, at exactly 6 characters, only uppercase and numbers)

Re: The new VirginAmerica.com

#136

Post by tombot »

alister wrote: post #91
robertnealan wrote: post #87

From a design perspective this is one of the most beautiful airline booking designs I've ever seen, but from a usability perspective it might just be the worst (save for maybe RyanAir). The cities being laid out in a grid looks nice but is ultimately far more difficult to understand then just looking at an alphabetical list in a dropdown. Auto-picking your departure city based on your current location is admittedly a…

Having tried the new virginamerica.com site just now, I don't really see a big difference between their site and anyone else's. Having booked through a lot of different airline sites over the last 15 years, I want to say that the differences between airline sites were much greater in the early web years. All the airline sites seemed to have converged to a common model. They all follow exactly the same flow: pick citi…

"Trying to book a flight on any Brazilian airline is impossible unless you're Brazilian"

I'm a UK citizen and recently booked and flew on an internal Brazilian flight. I used my UK passport number in the slot for the Brazilian identity number, there were no problems at all.

Re: The new VirginAmerica.com

#137

Post by calinet6 »

robertnealan wrote: post #102
robertnealan wrote: post #87

From a design perspective this is one of the most beautiful airline booking designs I've ever seen, but from a usability perspective it might just be the worst (save for maybe RyanAir). The cities being laid out in a grid looks nice but is ultimately far more difficult to understand then just looking at an alphabetical list in a dropdown. Auto-picking your departure city based on your current location is admittedly a…

Update: The above criticism was from trying it out on my laptop. Having now tested it on my phone I have to say the mobile experience is superb compared to most airline sites, though the ticket selection process is still a bit clunky (mostly that it doesn't fit in the width of an iPhone5 so you end up scrolling individual rows horizontally). Also, the lack of distinction between "Continue" and upgrading your seat is…

Agreed, I think it's great on mobile, but the unfortunate thing is that for desktop, they just scaled up the mobile experience.

Maybe that's a good thing, maybe that's something people are used to in this day and age, but I personally think the desktop can achieve more density and be more effective for it.

But in the end, it's not that big a fail. Consistency on all platforms is nice.

Re: The new VirginAmerica.com

#139

Post by calinet6 »

tericho wrote: post #114
ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well we're seeing it more often in UI/UX because "forced creative vision" aka "design dictatorship" is more popular and acceptable for designers these days. Especially new designers who don't want to stick to the tried and true rules of design (nor learn them), nor base their designs off of some kind of metrics or best practices statistics. Steve Jobs culminated this attitude through his "I'll tell the user what they…

> Steve Jobs culminated this attitude through his "I'll tell the user what they want" philosophy. Apparently users like being told what they want

It is a balance, which is why Steve Jobs got to say what he said and do what he did: with his experience in Zen Buddhism, he understood, above all, balance.

Design is two things: understanding people, and creating. You have to balance a pure empathy and understanding of needs and desires with uninhibited creativity. Only then will you create something that people both want and have never seen before.

http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/10/28/what-kind-of-bu...

Re: The new VirginAmerica.com

#140

Post by nobotty »

eevee wrote: post #113
spez wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know... maybe because it's 2014?

Oh, you're right. It should definitely be built in Shockwave Flash instead, which is even newer and shinier than JavaScript.

Flash as a technology is a caveman compared to modern Javascript-based technologies. There is no audience that does not have JS enabled -- other than the fringe who would probably be better off using wget to browse the internet.
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