Bad UI Design

[bertine]

This is a great article that shows how easy it is to redesign a bad UI and how sometimes the company culture doesn't allow good design.

Comments

[woodoo24.livejournal.com]

Hmm...so the problem I see with his article is he doesn't exactly understand the business that aa.com is in or the users who would frequent the site most. No it's not a great site. But he has oversimplified things. While casual travelers might want to see deals to Fiji, business travelers need quick access to other services. I don't want to wait for an ad to load before I get to online check-in or my frequent flyer account. Having booked hundreds of flights, cars and hotels online over the past 9 years I do have a pretty good idea what makes a good travel site. Personally I think Untied has the best looking site with access to all the services I need. JetBlue's site is flat out ugly and Virgin America just doesn't have the easy access to services. aa.com has access to everything I need even if it isn't the prettiest. I'll take function over form in this case.

And not to nit pick here but http://dustincurtis.com/index.html isn't exactly an eye catching blog. I'm not sure I would hire this guy to do my site redesign.

[bertine.livejournal.com]

Exactly, that is what I like about the article. Anyone can throw together a redesign of a website in a couple hours that totally misses the business need. I thought the response was a really good one and that is what I liked about it.

[woodoo24.livejournal.com]

Ah ok I missed your point. I thought you were agreeing with him that aa.com's site was bad and the redesign was good. Sorry.

[bertine.livejournal.com]

I wrote this post too fast. I didn't make my point clear at all.

Basically, he had a nice looking design but if it was that easy to do something like that then it would already be redesigned.

[woodoo24.livejournal.com]

That I understand. :) He committed the Cardinal Sin of design, putting form over function.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

bah, that's like saying PC DOS was better than Macs because all you had to do is type

DIR /P |more

and what could be simpler than that?

A reply from Terminal B of the Detroit Metro Airport

[woodoo24.livejournal.com]

Umm...ok. I'm really having a hard time understanding people today. I'm sure it's just me, but could you expound on your position a little bit? You like the Mac because it's prettier than MSDOS? In 1984 when MSDOS was king and Mac was the new kid on the block functionally there where many things about PCs that were infact better than the MAC. I would need to understand your objective for listing the files in a directory before making a determination on which platform provided the better results. I would say that yes there are instances where a text based lists of files would infact be more useful than a graphical listing of files. I use the Windows command prompt and UNIX command lines nearly every day.

Also could you explain why you would use both the /P and |more with the DIR command? Maybe that's why you were having so much trouble with DOS? :p

In my not so humble opinion the purpose of an airline website isn't so much a ticket sales site as it is a customer services portal for travelers. With the myriad of cheap ticket providers (Orbitz, Travelocity, Kayak...) even a casual traveler would be more likely to buy their ticket somewhere else and use the airline site for information. So a redesign that focuses primarily on the sale of tickets simply is not a good business decision.

Is that what you were saying too? If so please disregard everything above. :D

Re: A reply from Terminal B of the Detroit Metro Airport

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

ahh you caught me, there's no reason for both /p and |more

No, I was saying that Macintoshes were easy for anyone to sit down and use, whereas PCs required people to learn them. And PC people said it was better this way, with lots of prior knowledge about commands and more and more powerful options. And Mac people liked Macs because they were simple enough so you didn't have to know anything about them before using them.

Proponents of obtuse websites usually defend them in the same way, saying "but I need to directly click to find the VAT tax to fly to Serbia. And everyone should know that regional VAT taxes are accessible through My Profile which is accessible by clicking on the waving Cookie Monster"

Re: A reply from Terminal B of the Detroit Metro Airport

[woodoo24.livejournal.com]

Clear as mud.