Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Cleartrip Hurry Algorithm

mobocube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–36 of 36 posts

Re: The Cleartrip Hurry Algorithm

#31

Post by Uchikoma »

tpatke wrote: post #16
hrush wrote: post #10

Hi, My name is Hrush. I am one of Cleartrip's founders and I'd like to clarify how things actually work. Firstly, the "X seats left" feature is not an 'algorithm' at all. It is a simple count of the number of 'seats remaining' at a specific price point for a specific flight departure. In the example illustrated in the post, there is only a single seat left at a price point of Rs. 34,255. This does not mean that there…

Sounds like a minor usability problem has cost you a potential customer. The question is how many other customers have had the same problem but not bothered to write blog posts. Relying on tooltips is probably a bad idea. Maybe change the button text to 'X seats at this price'. Don't make me think. :-) On the bright side, be thankful for the good user feedback. I wish everyone who stopped using my product wrote a blo…

This made them a ton of customers who read the label as everyone else, felt pressured and bought the ticket [].

[] Not that I endorse that practice.

Re: The Cleartrip Hurry Algorithm

#32

Post by digikata »

micheljansen wrote: post #22

This is arguably an application of so-called "Dark Patterns"; the black hat of UX design. The red colour, the suggestive copy are all chosen to invoke a sense of urgency. A List Apart has a good article on the subject: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dark-patterns-deception-v...

I think the theme of false urgency/scarcity is the main annoyance of the Cleartrip presentation. The rest of it is just a matter of Cleartrip displaying few seats for a narrow price, vs MakeMyTrip displaying more seats with a wider pricing range.

Re: The Cleartrip Hurry Algorithm

#33

Post by pitchups »

moj34 wrote: post #2

Well spotted... although it seems a little generous to call this an algorithm :-)

I am pretty sure I have seen the exact same "trick" being used on sites here in the US - including Kayak, and Orbitz etc. So I don't think Cleartip in the only travel site that does this. And probablly that is how Cleartrip got the idea from. Also, not to defend this practice in any way, but did not the OP realize that the price of the seats was changing each time he increased the number of passengers.

Re: The Cleartrip Hurry Algorithm

#34

Post by aravindc »

hrush wrote: post #10

Hi, My name is Hrush. I am one of Cleartrip's founders and I'd like to clarify how things actually work. Firstly, the "X seats left" feature is not an 'algorithm' at all. It is a simple count of the number of 'seats remaining' at a specific price point for a specific flight departure. In the example illustrated in the post, there is only a single seat left at a price point of Rs. 34,255. This does not mean that there…

IMHO, your explanation is very unconvincing. I did read it thrice just to make sure I get it.

And off-topic, a feedback for Cleartrip is your pricing is definitely not helping you. Myself and at least three other friends and my brother and a cousin start our searches with Cleartrip and finish our bookings with Yatra or Makemytrip which seem to offer a discounted fare every time compared to you or at least thats what we have started to believe so after figuring out in a few bookings before.

All the best.

Re: The Cleartrip Hurry Algorithm

#35

Post by hrush »

breckinloggins wrote: post #27
hrush wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be perfectly honest, we didn't test for differently worded labels at all. So, we'd be outright lying if we said what you're asking us to. We agree that we need to work on improving the design of the feature and we will be doing just that. “X seats left at this price” is a better label, but may be too long to fit for the way it is currently designed, so we will need to think about how we can best convey the informa…

I was thinking about that. What about an asterisk? Then you could make the tooltip the asterisk expansion. On the bottom of the page, you could also give the expanded version. This might be the best of both worlds, because you can keep the wording but you also let people know there's more information about what it means. EDIT: Another idea... So, you could make the price plus the "x left" be a single graphical unit,…

We've pushed out some fixes to the design -- thank you, for your feedback, it was quite helpful in helping us think through the redesign.

http://bit.ly/y3uvv0

Post reply on HN