Nice rant, good PR for yourself. I guess it would be easy for anyone to redesign this site if they threw all business and technical requirements out the window as you have.
What are you supposed to do for one way trips? What if I am booking a multi-city flight? What if its an award ticket with miles? What if I want to check first class flights only? Flights with fully refundable fares? How do I check fares for children? What if I want non-stops only? Have you tested your "when" box with users? I can guarantee some of my less technical friends and family members would have no idea what to put in that box.
If you want a simple tool, fly an airline that has simple routes. All of you who love Southwest, go fly them. No one is forcing you to fly American. If you don't think they are providing shareholder value, don't buy their shares.
You're right. Lots of research and testing would need to be done. This is just a seed. I did think about a lot of this stuff, though.
For one-way flights, you just put one date in, rather than a range. As you pointed out, this has some problems. I'm willing to live with them for this mockup, though.
For multi-stop flights, you click the plus button next to the destination. Users who are not looking for multi-stop flights would not be looking for a way to add a destination, but the plus sign is just forward enough that if you are, you would press it and find your answer.
For the more advanced filtering stuff, I think it would be best to add those controls to the flights listing on the next page rather than clutter up the front page and first impression a user gets. Simplicity with progressive disclosure.
This is a great PR strategy that was used in the early days of 37 Signals. It was called 37Better and it put them on the map when they were still a consultancy:
I'm okay with the tone. One of my treasures is a book called "Ogilvy on Advertising" by David Ogilvy. In it, he impales, flays, dices, and torches campaigns and advertisements for various companies. His tone is less confrontational than Dustin's, but given the age of the book, I think it's at least as confrontational relative to the cultural standards of its time.
The book is now a classic, and Ogilvy built his eponymous firm into a powerhouse on the back of his reputation for telling anyone and everyone who would listen how terrible most advertising is, and how incompetent both clients and agencies are.
And what kind of stuff did David Ogilvy advocate? Simplicity. He ranted and raved about advertising that failed to pic a simple benefit and hammer it home, advertising that failed to motivate the reader to act. I see Dustin's rant in the same light, telling AA to get to the point and make it easy to fly with them.
Dustin may or may not follow in Ogilvy's footsteps, but this kind of thing certainly has precedent.
Yes! Forget the tone and focus on the quality of the customers feedback AA get from this site, any company can only imagine the feedback like this, and AA gets it right now and for free.
Well, AA is unlikely to read it and fire their team based on Dustin's say-so :-)
But from time to time companies wake up and smell the coffee all on their own. AA may get fed up with their marketing team and "clean house" themselves, hiring a new manager and looking for new outside talent like contractors and consultants.
When that happens, the new team are often looking for people who think just like them--that the old stuff was garbage and the old management inept. Dustin could get a call under such circumstances.
For someone who is angry about the UI of the AA site, the UI of your own site could use some work. I can not click on any of the pictures, and instead I am forced to click a giant "See the redesign" button. I also can not click on your logo to get back to your homepage, even if I wanted to hire you I have no idea how to get to a page that will tell me how.
You're right. It's pretty ironic. But it's my personal site, and I have treated it more as a playground than anything serious. I felt that I was allowed to neglect it.
However, in light of the attention I have received today, I'll be spending a lot more time perfecting it in the future.
Disclaimer: AA is one of my favorite companies to deal with, so perhaps I am being too nice to them.
FWIW, I think this is BS. AA's website is not wonderful, but it's not hard to use. I book about 50,000 miles worth of travel a year there, and each trip only takes me a few minutes. My only complaint is that it won't remember my password.
He also complains about the business model, with "ruby, sapphire, and emerald" and "economy, business, and first" classes. This is how the legacy carriers work. They have three-class longhaul flights, and yes, you have to pick which class of service you want. They are also a member of an airline alliance, complicating things a bit ("ruby, sapphire, and emerald" are not AA's elite status, but rather the elite statuses that are recognized by oneworld, the alliance they're in). (He neglects to mention AA's own elite levels, which is odd -- the only place that you see notes about status is during seat selection, and they use AA's terms for the status [Gold, Plat, Exec Plat], not the oneworld terms.)
This complexity is why I fly AA nearly exclusively. Since I fly them a lot, I get various privileges (free domestic upgrades, lounge access when travelling internationally, all the BS fees waived, etc.). The complexity that being a member of an airline alliance entails means that I get to earn miles (and status) by flying BA in Europe, JAL to Japan, etc. When I have enough miles, I can redeem them for something worthwhile, like a $14,000 first-class ticket. (On the "less-complex" carriers, the best thing you can get with "miles" is a domestic economy ticket. "Yay.")
Anyway, I don't think this guy knows much about flying. Perhaps AA's website could better educate him... but most of these things have nothing to do with the webiste. If you don't care about the specific benefits of flying AA, just use a fare comparison site and pick the lowest fare. If you do care about AA's benefits, read the documentation on their site. Either way, I don't think the website or the legacy-carrier business model is harming the shareholders.
Ft. Lauderdale to Pittsburgh on Southwest: $150 round trip, full credit for cancellations, no Saturday night stayover required, can book only one way trips, no change fees, no luggage charge, can pick my own seat, earn 4 free trips per year, drink for free
Miami to Pittsburgh on AA: $550 to $800. That's all I need to know.
Full time Southwest flyer here. If one airline has it figured out, why don't others?
In 2008 I flew 150 segments on AA (a flight with a layover is two segments). I fly Southwest sometimes, but I would never consider it for frequent travel.
On AA, they recognize that life is hard for people who fly very frequently. First class upgrades after a long week make a big difference. Being able to show up late to the gate and still get my preferred seat makes a big difference.
Southwest is great for casual travelers. While AA costs more it is 100% worth if for someone who travels every week.
As for the website as an indication of overall customer service, I have to disagree. I can call in and they know who I am and what flights I have booked from the caller id. When a travel day is going less than smooth, being able to call someone directly and get it resolved is great.
I was a frequent United flyer and agree completely. Massive route network, customer service and huge schedules are critical for business travelers.
What is most striking with the legacy carriers is the different level of service offered between a 100k+ flyer and someone who flies twice a year. This is where Southwest, JetBlue, and the LCCs are really strong. Consistent service is nice.
I couldn't agree more, they are one of the only airlines which understand that simplicity can actually be an advantage.
They fly only a single aircraft type (737), only have general seating (no first class), don't have in-flight entertainment, and the list goes on. They focus on simply getting you from point A to point B in a cheap and efficient manner.
While I'll concede that they're not always the best, they are nearly always better than most.
You're right that southwest, jetblue et al are pretty good for what they offer- but don't misunderstand the next steps- heavier competition, higher price crunch and then you end up with a service like easyjet or ryanair. If you've ever flown either, you'll understand just exactly how unpleasant flying can be.
Good point, I've never flown either but have heard plenty of stories. I think there is a fine line here between inexpensive and cheap which those airlines have go walk wisely.
Sure, maybe you enjoy navigating their odd hierarchy of complex member statuses. I'm pretty sure most people don't enjoy that. At the end of the day, American Airlines loses 300 million dollars a quarter. They're doing something wrong. And they have to fix it. They could start with fixing their customer experience.
They're doing something wrong. And they have to fix it. They could start with fixing their customer experience.
They're definitely doing something wrong, and they definitely need to fix it.
I like your redesign, but I doubt that their existing design is what's losing them 1.2 billion a year.
Treat this as a pandemic emergency across your entire company /
Immediately fire your entire web team, if you have one /
[Booking a flight on your website] disturbed me so deeply that I vowed never to fly your airline again
This comes across as hysterical and out of proportion with the problem at hand. This detracts from your main points, and makes it more difficult for you to be taken seriously.
As a customer, figuring out how to make AA profitable is not really my job. I love the service they provide to me, though, whereas I would only fly the "low cost carriers" under extreme duress. Maybe that's the problem, but probably not.
I totally agree with you on the benefits, but you must admit that from a sheer ugliness perspective AA has by far the worst site out of the "old school" carriers. Delta (my usual airline of choice), United, USAirways, and even Continental have much nicer sites (roughly in my order of preference). The usability of all of the above seems to not be all that different, however, so to each his own.
Second this. Virgin America blew my mind when I flew them from Seattle to SF for StartupSchool last year. Their First Class was the same price as everyone else's coach, and was the best First Class I've been in, including lots of international First Class travel. Unfortunately, they, like JetBlue-my other fav airline, don't fly many places yet. Hopefully they expand soon!
I agree, except for one thing: I couldn't find a way to put a 24-hr hold on a ticket through their website. Seems like a pretty standard feature; not sure why they don't allow it.
Justifying your design decisions shows that you have good communication skills and that your design was thought through, not just mindlessly designed to be "prettier".
No one really cares about "We more clearly delineated required fields and section groupings."
And I think many of the explanations are really recognized subconsciously which lead us to favor one design over another. What you said reminds me of the article about the Googlers who asked for reasons why they should use 3 pixel borders instead of 2.
> No one really cares about "We more clearly delineated required fields and section groupings."
I do. There are a lot of designers out there who are obsessed with making things pretty and cutting-edge, but can't do proper UX to save their lives. Show that you're not one of them by explaining your design.
> What you said reminds me of the article about the Googlers who asked for reasons why they should use 3 pixel borders instead of 2.
Which is a worthwhile question - there is a hard science behind user interactions, it's not some magical, ephemeral art (though creativity certainly plays a role). What users think is "prettier" or "preferable" may in fact not be ideal in terms of usability.
Case in point: Amazon.com has an god-awfully ugly website, but it's been proven time and time again to generate superior sales numbers. I'm sure we can redesign it to be more Web 2.0 and aesthetically pleasing, but that's not the goal of the business.
Similarly, in AA's case the goal is to sell flights - aesthetics matters very little in this regard other than to establish your brand image.
I do agree AA's site is in dire need of overhaul - and I do like your design from first glance - but you have failed to defend your position in any worthwhile way. You have failed to point out examples of how the existing site fails from a UI perspective (no, "it's obvious!" doesn't count), nor have you suggested how your design improves upon these failings.
I like your redesign, it's very effective. But you're making a mistake in your text - you're combining a personal approach with 'angry' text. By doing so, you're creating an atmosphere you don't want, because people are observing a personal fight between two people. I.e, you personify the airline, then also use a personal tone, so people observe a fight, and the reactions to that will always be negative.
Follow the rule: When you go personal, make it positive. When you need to go negative, then go impersonal, allowing people to focus on the arguments you are bringing.
Usually when someone says "breaking the law", they're referring to a crime, so you're correct.
A board which fails to act in a way which maximizes shareholder value, when that is the stated goal of the corporation (as it often is), is in breach of its fiduciary duties, which is a civil offense.
So somehow he thinks that because he had problems using their site - a website many people manage to navigate each day - they should treat it as a "pandemic emergency" and change many aspects of their business because of it?
Don't get me wrong, their site could be much better, but Curtis doesn't seem to have much sense of how things work in that place we like to call the "real world".
I seriously doubt he wants to consult for them. This is good PR for him. He's written off American Airlines as a client potential client and a past customer.
He comes across as arrogant and full of himself. The redesign is nice, but not ground-breaking brilliant, and I can already hear him shrug and say, "well, that's stupid" when he's told that a certain change has to be made for a certain reason.
One of the hardest things to do when hiring a consultant is to figure out what they're like to work with ... will they have a good attitude, work well with people, understand and listen to requirements etc. Surprisingly to some, many companies value this kind of thing very highly.
I don't think he intended to land them as clients. This is more to showcase his skills and gain publicity. A page from 37 signals playbook. I think he has few good points about the user experience. However, the hyperbole turned me off.
I looked at your rant at american for their poor usability and it was so overflowing with hyperbole that I had to close the tab. You suggested that by changing out american's design team, they might stop-gap their loss and regain a new glory in the airline industry.
But you forgot to do one thing first: research.
If you had remembered to check out the brand core values you'd know that american is really all about a killer rewards program. The majority of customers seem to be repeats, all holding aadvantage member cards and willing to plug away at that free flight to Cabo they've just been dreaming about.
Your design however doesn't address this need; not one single link, box or other clever device on the page gets you into your account; the place where the airline can customize your travel, offer you deals on the routes you fly regularly and so on.
See, American isn't Southwest, VA or JetBlue - they know that their business is based around repeat customers who all know how to work the system.
Yeah, it's a horrible looking site and yours definitely pops more. But hey, you say it'll help save their losses: i think it'll make them worse.
Yours, an American customer
(BTW: if you were serious about envisaging a redesign of american and not just taking a promo pot shot - then checkout the discussions on flyertalk.com - you'll find people who travel american every day there.)
Your account was definitely there after a second check. It is kinda obscured as a 'normal' weighted link - and so i didn't see it on first glance. My point though still stands: the experience of AA is geared around the points gathering system, and any new design should reflect that :)
"they know that their business is based around repeat customers who all know how to work the system."
Hmm, so they're intentionally crappifying their experience to make their existing customers feel 007-esque? To make them feel that they're somehow hacking into the site, digging deep, to find good deals? Why not just lay the good deals out on the table? What's there to hide? If they really are good deals, wouldn't it seem logical for them to make 'working the system' a relative breeze for anyone looking to score a free trip? And you can't possibly believe that this type of attitude is going to lead AA to a long and prosperous future. It's about an experience. You start with a great online experience, then that seamlessly integrates with your in-airport experience, and that leads to new customers. And I'm willing to bet that any business on the planet that provides an easy and quick service to their customers will have a higher rate of repeat customer use than a business that caters to a customer base by providing a stupidly complex experience, ultimately capping their customer acquisition rate.
Look at Apple. You want to see a Genius at the Genius Bar? Go online, make an appointment in less than 1 minute, go to the store, and see your name up on the screen with a Genius ready to help you. You see how that works? My computer illiterate parents could book a Genius Bar appointment. Why shouldn't they be able to do the same with AA?
Good points- working the system here means that they are able to know what the offers are and so on - not just be able to drive the site but know when to talk to someone, etc.
I agree that user experience is fundamental, it's just the hyperbole of Dustin that made me cringe :)
Delete the snotty letter, it's not your main point. Also, remove the use of their logo and trademarks or they're just going to have their lawyers send you a letter telling you to take your page down. Use placeholders of the same size.
Focus on the before and after redesign with visual callouts of what wasn't working and how you fixed it.
I am frequently in the market for web design services, but I would never hire an opinionated snot regardless of his talent. Be professional and save rants for beers with friends.
Nonsense. Since when is being opinionated something to be avoided? A rant like this just shows you have passion, and maybe you're still young enough that you haven't learned to keep your head down and pretend otherwise.
When it gets in the way of effective collaboration. The way Dustin wrote his letter, he portrays himself as someone who isn't interested in his client's input. AA might have valid reasons for designing its site that way, based on years of being in the airline business. Even if he's written off AA as a potential client, he shouldn't alienate all potential clients by appearing so opinionated. What if he had picked one of my websites to bash, without asking me why I'd made certain decisions, proposing his own reasons for those decisions, or at least reaching out and being civil? I wouldn't be too happy at all. I'd have to waste time formulating a public response and managing my image in the face of an unprovoked attack.
That's a very good point, I'm probably in the same boat.
Yet on the other hand, if I thought his redesign was amazing, then I'd probably put up with an opinionated snot as a short-term contractor if it got our site something our customers loved.
As someone who works in the travel industry, it sometimes feels like basically everyone stopped working on their websites around 2001. The investment was so massive that there's a huge uphill battle to make any changes at all since then.
I couldn't care for some of the copy. It seems like you wrote it right after your horrible experience, so being a little dramatic is normal, but go through it again and tone it down (now that you're a bit less frustrated).
With that out of the way, I think the redesign is wonderful, it really makes the experience much less painful. Sure, some of the legacy classes of travelers are an annoyance, and I'm sure if American Airlines had to do it again, they wouldn't create so many sub-classes. Like dealing with real clients, you simply have to accept some legacy standards and work around them (maybe explain to me clearly the difference between classes).
Overall, it looks like you did a lot of work and I love the end result, could you maybe post a little before/after with some details on what you decided to cross out or move around?
Not sure about firing the entire dev team. You don't even know what the back office is like. Who would maintain the existing system or handle the change over?
Just get some people to work on the design and work with the existing dev team and sack the current design team.
I agree-- they're probably pulled in lots of different crazy directions by marketing and branding teams who dictate how the site should look.
Firing that web design team shouldn't even be on the list-- it should be more about firing the exec who didn't push hard enough internally to focus on usability over all of the zillions of other priorities the front page of aa.com would have.
I use the AA site fairly often and am far from in love with it but I don't care at all for the re-design. AA for me is work, sometimes painful work if I need a booking for a bad family issue. A pretty island that I'll never get to visit will often annoy. I want all the functionality immediately at hand, lots of dense information is useful. They have, over the years, improved the date handling so it's usually two clicks. Clicking through a few pages of options gets to the information needed, it's often a long list of possible flights, but I'd really be unhappy if it was filtered and niced up so I missed an option. Now his design for AAHappyBubbleVaca.com would be just right.... (oh, sorry for the snark)
Actually, if you would've suppressed your desire to quickly jump back here and make a snarky remark, you would've found that the redesign he offered is worlds better, both from an aesthetic and usability standpoint.
You'd think a company, especially in the airline market and one whose profits probably rely significantly on online ticket sales, would make it a priority to invest time and money, a trivial amount really to them, into making sure the online experience is as best as it can be.
The redesign is much better, but I don't appologize for the snarky remark. Starting out with 5 paragraphs of a hyperbolic and fluffy rant when you're criticising another company for having a cluttered site is insane. What ever happened to bottom line up front?
Dustin did a great redesign, then wrote the article seemingly based on the premise that he had built in credibility. What else explains the wall of self indulgent text, basically celebrating his victory over the AA designers before it's even been established? If I know who he is and I stopped reading, who in American Airlines is going to get to the bottom?
I don't know, maybe I overreacted, but I did tell the truth about closing the tab. I didn't make it to the redesign the first time I looked at the page, and the snarky remark wasn't to get points, it was more made out of disgust. If you look through my comment history, you'll probably see this is rare for me.
I like the redesign quite a bit but #### - the copy was just whiny. "Recently, I had the horrific displeasure of booking a flight on your website, aa.com. The experience disturbed me so deeply that I vowed never to fly your airline again." Not one single human reading that sentence believes it. And I can guess that most people reading it had the same thoughts I did: "Oh give me a break... {closes page}". I did close the page and came back to the comments here at HN trying to figure out what this was about. After reading a couple of comments, I re-opened and saw the re-design and liked it. But I did close the tab after reading that sentence lol.
I also laughed when I read, "Your website is abusive to your customers..." No, it isn't; that's just more drama/hyperbole. As someone else said, thousands and thousands of people use that website every day and, in case he isn't aware, that site design has been around for at least two years. I've used it countless times and, while it will win no awards for usability or design, I can accomplish what I need without resorting to cursing generally.
The ironic thing to me is that they spend a bajillion dollars every few years redesigning their stewardess' outfits and making sure they get tons of pub for it, but the web site gets nowhere near the same amount of attention.
The majority of people are much, much more interested in clothes than websites. Do you think fashionistas and clothing obsessives are a bunch of pretentious wankers? Well, that's how the general public feels about online designers. Very few people think, or care, about user interfaces, but everyone has the experience of wearing clothes, so such information seems vastly more relevant.
yes. a lot of airline and travel websites have awful, inexcusable user interfaces, and they could use a good kick in the pants. similar frustrations inspired us to build tripeedo.com, a better user experience for travel search.
What are you supposed to do for one way trips? What if I am booking a multi-city flight? What if its an award ticket with miles? What if I want to check first class flights only? Flights with fully refundable fares? How do I check fares for children? What if I want non-stops only? Have you tested your "when" box with users? I can guarantee some of my less technical friends and family members would have no idea what to put in that box.
If you want a simple tool, fly an airline that has simple routes. All of you who love Southwest, go fly them. No one is forcing you to fly American. If you don't think they are providing shareholder value, don't buy their shares.
Anyway, like I said, nice PR. You suckered me in.