CheapTickets+Critique

Critique of **[|Cheaptickets.com]** by Michael Midgley-Biggs


 * Low-Level Items** (spelling, fonts, colors, layouts, etc.)

The layout is oddly left-justified. While this might not have been a problem on 1990s displays that were largely square, modern computers often use wide-screen aspect ratios, which leaves between 1/3 and 2/3 of the screen on the right as whitespace, depending on the page. The layout would be more comfortable to look at if it were center-justified.

Much of the text is in 10pt Veranda, which is difficult to read. A better choice would be 12pt Helvetica or Arial.


 * Middle-Level Aspects** (consistency, error handling, writing style, menu design, etc.)

While the forms for entering data use standard widgets, the form-submission buttons are all done as clickable images. This is oddly inconsistent. The buttons would be better done as normal form-button widgets.

The forms for searching flight or hotel information do not offer easy reversibility. They first direct to a flash-laden loading screen before redirecting to a results page that does not contain an easy-to-find link back to where the user was

On search results pages, the original form is reproduced in part, but should be placed in a more intuitive location - at the top of the search results, or in the same location within the window that it was originally.


 * High-Level Concepts** (information architecture, navigation, audience appeal, privacy protection, credibility, etc.)

The consistent navigation bar on every page seems useful, but many of its functions duplicate the effects of the radio buttons on the site's travel search forms. Those buttons should be removed, or the navigation bar should present different options.

Search result information is presented in meaningful units depending on the type of information (the flights in a round trip are grouped together; vacation packages are presented in complete units, etc), but the more complex items take up quite a bit of vertical space, which is not affected by resizing the browser window horizontally.

The site's format justification and fixed width presentation are systematic problems that interfere with successful use of the entire service. That this problem exists at all is a detriment to the service's credibility (which is already at a disadvantage, as it's not widely advertised).