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The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

dustincurtis.com

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Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#21

Post by potatolicious »

jrockway wrote: post #16

Ouch. I have top-tier status on AA, and they will be getting a note from me about this. Not cool. That said, I am still confused as to why Dustin thinks AA's website is so relevant to its business model. Their website is not very Web 2.0, it's true. But, they make up for that... I can fly non-stop from Chicago (my home airport) to thousands of cities around the world on AA quite cheaply. They have three-class interna…

"Their website is not very Web 2.0, it's true."

One of the original reasons why I disagreed with Dustin. Slick Web 2.0-y goodness does not imply a better user experience. Copious amounts of whitespace is easy on the eyes, but also doesn't automatically imply discoverability or readability. I know first-hand of at least one top-50 website that is very Web 1.0 but absolutely excels at what it does.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#22

Post by potatolicious »

drusenko wrote: post #12
DarkShikari wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the exact reverse here. I love sites and applications that use a dark background; bright backgrounds are like staring into a lamp. It probably depends on the environment you tend to read in; I usually read in a darker room.

I'm quite OK with a lot of dark sites, but this one produces an insane "buzzing" feeling. Might have something to do with the gray-ish text. I couldn't get through the entire article even if I wanted to. I'm reading in a dark-ish room right now. I suspect it may have something to do with the type of monitor used to view the site, because on mine the physical effects are very pronounced.

I agree. I can't put my finger on it, but the white/red text on the page positively glows at me, not in a pleasant way either. It feels like I'm staring at a lit light bulb.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#23

Post by mcav »

drusenko wrote: post #12
DarkShikari wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the exact reverse here. I love sites and applications that use a dark background; bright backgrounds are like staring into a lamp. It probably depends on the environment you tend to read in; I usually read in a darker room.

I'm quite OK with a lot of dark sites, but this one produces an insane "buzzing" feeling. Might have something to do with the gray-ish text. I couldn't get through the entire article even if I wanted to. I'm reading in a dark-ish room right now. I suspect it may have something to do with the type of monitor used to view the site, because on mine the physical effects are very pronounced.

I'd guess that it's a difference in screen brightness. Try turning down your brightness and see if that helps.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#24

Post by michaelcampbell »

wakeless wrote: post #4

Its amazing how someone so obviously passionate can be completely screwed over by such bureaucracy. Do HR departments ever have humans running them?

Sadly, the sole purpose of an HR dept. is to keep a company from getting sued. The bigger the company, the more that's their sole focus.

This guy admitting anything but the most perfect of environments and purity of process, while not a firing offense to normal folk, opened a vector for the possibility of the hint of something bad being done. So he had to go.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#25

Post by trevorbramble »

edw519 wrote: post #11

AA searched their exchange database for the text I posted, found the guy, and fired Mr. X on the spot. As upsetting as this is, it's just not that big of a surprise. Some companies take non-disclosure very seriously. Why didn't Mr. X just use gmail? I can't imagine discussing any company's internals on their own email system. OTOH, maybe Mr. X just committed corporate suicide by email. That's one way to escape the in…

I wondered that as well and assumed he used his corporate account to make his identity claim more credible.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#26

Post by noonespecial »

The mistake Mr. X. made here was not about caring about his job or even criticizing his employer. He contacted an outsider, with his company's email server, ostensibly on their behalf. At bigco, you just can't do that folks. Everything that leaves corporate walls must be vetted by legal, (and probably marketing too). There are lists of 100's (maybe 1000's by now) of innocuous seeming words that you just can't use. Language, nationality, gender, and racial issues all must be considered.

Like it or not, at Bigco International, everything is a press release.

Personally, I would have given the guy a warning. What he said was quite harmless and almost certainly common knowledge, but we don't know the whole story here. He may have been warned before, or AA burned by this type of thing before or both. Its unfortunate, but understandable. In the name of tolerance and acceptance, we've built one of the most intolerant and litigious societies ever. This is just one of the many sad side effects.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#27

Post by jonny_noog »

drusenko wrote: post #9

A bit off-topic, but Dustin Curtis' site really hurts my eyes reading on my MacBook pro... I have a really hard time reading his text, and when I look away, I have very pronounced stripe patterns in my vision.

I have the same issue with light text on dark background pages, I generally dislike them. It actually affects my vision for a few seconds after I look away from the page, before my eyes adjust again. That page could certainly do with a little more contrast between text and background at any rate. I recently created a site that does make some limited use of light text on dark background and found this post from a few years ago to be a good resource for looking at the issue from both sides (the comments are an important part):

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200608/light_text_on_d...

For as long as I can remember I have not liked reading large amounts of light text on dark backgrounds. It's always felt as if this was some kind of genetic predisposition for me. While for others, the opposite (i.e. strongly preferring light text on dark background) seems to be true.

I'd be really interested if anyone has heard of some solid research on why certain people prefer one over the other.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#28

Post by 3pt14159 »

trevorbramble wrote: post #25
edw519 wrote: post #11

AA searched their exchange database for the text I posted, found the guy, and fired Mr. X on the spot. As upsetting as this is, it's just not that big of a surprise. Some companies take non-disclosure very seriously. Why didn't Mr. X just use gmail? I can't imagine discussing any company's internals on their own email system. OTOH, maybe Mr. X just committed corporate suicide by email. That's one way to escape the in…

I wondered that as well and assumed he used his corporate account to make his identity claim more credible.

He could have emailed Dustin from gmail then told Dustin to make a throw away email that he would email "hey Betsy, hope the trip went well. Did you bring me back any chocolate from Switzerland?" Done. Verified and completely secure.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#29

Post by hwijaya »

jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #3

I hope Virgin hires this guy and makes a media event out of it. I will now never fly American Airlines ever again in my life. This sincerely pissed me off.

Hmm .. maybe this will catch Virgin attention if all of us do it?

http://twitter.com/hwijaya/status/5436741226

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#30

Post by dcurtis »

drusenko wrote: post #9

A bit off-topic, but Dustin Curtis' site really hurts my eyes reading on my MacBook pro... I have a really hard time reading his text, and when I look away, I have very pronounced stripe patterns in my vision.

Yeah, this happens on some screens. I spend all day looking at and designing white websites, and I just enjoy playing with dark on my own site.

I feel I can take risks with my blog that I can't take elsewhere. Sorry if it bothers you.

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