Kayak

Amir Majedi

[|www.kayak.com]

__Low-level items (spelling, fonts, colors, layouts, etc.)__

Kayak's initial page is minimalist, a simple 3-column layout encloses a left navigation menu, middle content area, and a collapsible right hand side suggestion/tips area along with a thin horizontal banner at the top of the webpage. The navigation menu defaults to flights upon load. The feedback the user is given regarding which menu item is selected is a bit weak. The color and text decoration change but neither the border or the button background change, as do on many current pages. From an accessibility point of view this lack of contrast difference might cause some problems distinguishing between selected modes. The content area of the page, the center column, is where the important user data entry takes place. For "Flights" the content area is split into "From" and "To" with text boxes to input locations as well as dates. The date text input field displays a MM-DD-YYYY representation along with a helpful JQuery style calendar widget for people who can't remember dates. Helpful feedback is provided beneath the date input fields where a light grey string representation of the selected date (e.g "Tue, Sep 27 2011") is displayed. However visibility of this feature might be reduced on users with very high resolution displays.

__Middle-level aspects (consistency, error handling, writing style, menu design, etc.)__

The navigation menu design is very simple and allows new users to find the area of interest quickly. Having said this, the menu contains items which don't really belong. The "Deals" section seems out of place since the other items are very specific. Also, under the "More" section, there are multiple lists for Tools (e.g. "tools," "More tools") as well as redundant links to the Flights, Hotels, Cars, etc that the left side nav menu already directs to. This inconsistency carries further into the icons which accompany the links. The same airplane icon is used for "Flights," "Fly now," "Direct flights," "airlines," and "My bookings." Kayak provides helpful error handling as well. Unlike other sites which only report the missing fields that should be filled in, Kayak provides suggestions if you intended for the lack of input. For example, when no departure date is selected, the error reported says "Please enter a return date. If you wish to do a one-way flight, please click the 'One-way' radio button above." This is nice but maybe a confirmation on the error message to make it a one-way flight and complete the query anyway would help.

__High-level concepts (information architecture, navigation, audience appeal, privacy protection, credibility, etc.)__

Kayak is known for allowing users to query multiple travel sites. This extra information is helpful for planning trips and comparing prices. I found some bugs after using the system for a few minutes. For instance, I did a flight query and allowed for Expedia and Priceline to popup. The two popup windows loaded side by side, allowing me to view the contents of both pages simultaneously which was convenient so I didn't have to remember prices and go back and forth, however the Kayak page reported an error as having found no results, while the popup windows contained plenty of results from the two external travel agencies. The mental model suggests that the sum total of all the results will be aggregated into a single page on kayak.com, however I had to use Expedia's and Priceline's websites to view the results. I think with better integration and more agility in querying and drilling down results the website would be even more useful.