Critique,+Ian+King

=Web site Critique -- Travelocity =

9/28/2011


__Low Level Concepts__
Overall this website uses excellent choices in low-level items. The font that the website designers chose is simple and easy to read. Even the spelling and grammar look like they were run through multiple iterations of spell check and manual checking. The designers chose to use several different shades of blue, primarily and I support this decision. When I think of vacations, I immediately think of beaches, oceans, and summer get-a-ways. By using different shades of blue on the Travelocity homepage, the designers have invoked a feeling of being nearer the beach and ocean, which makes people more willing to buy tickets to these places. The designers also decided to make the Travelocity mascot a garden gnome and have displayed it in very prominent places through out the page. I’m not sure what the significance of a garden gnome is but I feel that having it there is a good thing. The layout of the page has been given an enormous amount of consideration by the designers and deserves a little more analysis. Immediately after opening the page, the user sees 3 main things: a top navigation bar, a search form, and some advertisements. The navigation bar is very simple—you select what kind of package you’re looking for and click it. The page will then take you to the appropriate search form. The advertisements are located on the right pane of the page and are (thankfully) easily ignored. They make helpful suggestions if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, but are otherwise very unobtrusive. Finally, in the left and center of the page is the search form. This section changes size depending on what type of package you’re looking for and each search form only requires you to input the minimum amount of pertinent data (i.e. destination, round trip, desired dates, etc.). The search bar also has several sections that are clearly labeled with intuitive labels such as “Search For Travel: What do you need?” or “Where do you want to go?” and “When do you want to go?”

__Mid Level Concepts__
The website looks very consistent—all the “submit” buttons are an easy to see and read shade of green, all the search forms use the same layout (question/label on the left, selection on the right), and the right side of the page is advertisements. At the bottom of every page are the extra things that might be useful but are not readily needed, and the top navigation bar always says the same nine options. Error handling is accomplished using a very simple error box that appears at the top of the search form whenever there is a problem with the search. To simplify the users task of finding the error, the page also highlights the submission box/button where the error occurred. The actual error text watered down into simple instructions for the user to follow, and rather than using the traditional red, the designers use a faded box which changes from a white top to an orange bottom. All the writing in the site is minimal but clear, there is no more text than is necessary. Instructions are phrased as general questions but expanded into more detail where appropriate.

__High Level Concepts__
Information after a search is presented in a very simple format: list the results that fit the search criteria in order of price (lowest first). Everything after that are details that the users can decide filter out for themselves. If the user decides that they want to restart the search, they simply click any of the search bar options on the top navigation menu and are automatically directed to that search form. Through out the site, the user is always the controller of the system. At each page, nothing happens until the user clicks something. One of the flight searches allows a user to search for any flight between now and another day (up to six months away) to a particular location. After clicking to submit, the site pops up a bunch of small pages where their search was resubmitted to other competing vacation sites. Here the user is given no warning about this behavior and may think they are being overwhelmed by pop-up advertisements. The Travelocity interface does an excellent job of reducing short-term memory requirements. The destination bar accepts almost any kind of location input be it the Airport code or city name. It does not display suggestions however, so the user has to at least know the name of something nearby in order to make the search work. When inputting the departure/arrival dates, a calendar pops onto the screen to help the user select the dates they require and there is an option to be flexible about the selected date.