[IxDA Discuss] Ease of use of travel booking websites

[Julie Stanford]

Recently I spent over 20 hours trying to book a flight from California to
Milan and used about every single website out there. 

The issue I found was a combination of UI and inaccurate data. Here's what
happened:

1) Airfares would be displayed that when you clicked on them, would not
match an actual fare. Instead, after a long wait, there would be a screen
the informed me that the fare was no longer available but a more expensive
(often even $4,000) fare was available. This is very bait and switch and
afflicted all the sites including Orbitz, Expedia, Kayak, Travelocity,
Sidestep, and lesser known sites. 

2) Sites did not include searches on Europe's low far carriers.
Consequently, in order to put together a trip that involved a major carrier
across the Atlantic and then a smaller carrier once I got off in Europe, I
had to do individual searches on the small carrier sites and try to match up
my time tables to get all my flight plans in order. 

Sites let you search surrounding airports within 60 miles or whatever but
don't let you say...I want to go anywhere in England or anywhere in Europe
for cheap and then take a puddle jumper to my real destination.  Since you
can do this on your own, there should be a way to do it automatically. Or
better yet, should automatically take this strategy and offer the cheapest
option because it has the intelligence to do it.

3) Sites like Travelocity and others have started offering the ability to
search to find the cheapest fare regardless of the date. Neat! However, once
you search for the cheapest fare, you get a calendar of dates the fare might
be available. You then have to click on each date, wait, and then learn if
(a) there is even a flight that day and (b) if the cheap fare is still
available. This turns into a long crazy guessing game with the calendar,
clicking on dates in order of your preference and hoping that you get that
promised cheap rate. At the end, sometimes the rate is never available. What
a stupid feature! Isn't the database strong enough to actually tell you not
only that the cheap fare exists but when it is really available?

4) Many sites have started offering flexibility like flying around a certain
day give or take a few. This is cool but is still broken. 

For example, if you want to be away for 2 weeks, you should be able to
indicate that you want to be away for two weeks around a certain time and
you don't care what the exact dates are ...but might have a small pref.
Instead, you have to say that you are 3 days flexible around your start and
end date. This is not the same because if it is three days out in both
directions, then suddenly you have a 3 week vacation which doesn't work. 

Alright, there's my rant.

Julie



_____________________________________
Julie Stanford
Principal, Sliced Bread Design | www.slicedbreaddesign.com
650-799-7225
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com 
> [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On 
> Behalf Of John Grøtting
> Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 9:02 AM
> To: discuss at ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Ease of use of travel booking websites
> 
> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant 
> quoted material.]
> 
> I assume that most people here have used www.google.com. It 
> is wonderfully easy to use.
> 
> If I compare this to travel websites, though, I can't say the same.  
> Obviously, the tasks are much more complex, but I still feel 
> that websites like Expedia overload the user and miss out on 
> opportunities to simplify tasks. Not only that, but they miss 
> out completely on the opportunity to get the customer excited 
> about their travel destination.
> 
> Let me throw out some theoretical numbers: 50% of customers 
> drop-off at the homepage and only 10% of people who intend to 
> book ever complete their tasks. If anyone has better guesses 
> or real numbers, that would be great to hear.
> 
> My questions, though, is what do you, my fellow 
> interaction/usability experts, believe would be realistic 
> improvements targets? This could be applied to other types of 
> website, I just chose this to be specific.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> John Grøtting
> 
> Grøtting + Sauter
> Barnerstr. 14B
> 22765 Hamburg
> Germany
> 
> Tel +49.40.398.34342
> SkypeIn +1.818.574.8440
> Fax +49.40.398.34340
> Mobile +49.172.4246.976
> www.g-s.de
> g at g-s.de
> 
> 
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