Critique,+Jennifer+Gorski

Expedia
Critique - Jennifer Gorski

Low Level Items:
The Expedia website is designed to help new users plan an affordable vacation, even if they do not know where to go. Their main site features top deals for the day along with lists of popular destinations, flights, hotels, and rental car locations. All of this information however, makes the site overcrowded and less appealing. Some of their sub sites feature a table with multiple tabs that is very clean and easy to use. If the main page used one of these tables to display their suggestions, it would be much more successful. Something else I would change is the use of multiple fonts. Each section of the page is designed to make its features stand out without thinking of the page as a whole. While the yellow and blue color scheme unifies these areas, using the same fonts would really improve the design.

Mid Level Items:
The main feature of each page is the left hand search form, which is very appealing while also being user friendly. The form is outlined with a thick blue bar and features pops of yellow that draws the user straight to it. At the top is a multiple choice list for the user to choose what they want to search for. Depending on what is selected, the form immediately changes to show search options relevant to the selection. To aid the user, the form uses drop down menus where it can, and a calendar for the next two months pops up when you click a place to enter a date. The form also automatically fills in the areas with defaults. The only sections the user has to fill in are the options dealing with location. When you type a location, a drop down menu appears to help you choose a city, or you can enter something vague and the next page will feature options. If there is an error, such as selecting the same day for departure and arrival, a warning appears right above that box saying what the box requires. While the menu is designed very well, it is not featured on each of the sub sites. This would be easy to fix by just using the menu that appears when you select an option at the top of the form, instead of the different menus featured on some of the sub pages. There are several other inconsistencies throughout the sub pages including tables, image layout, and different locations of similar information. The vacation packages, hotels, and flights pages all feature a beautiful, consistent design. If the other sub pages followed this format, the whole site would be much more polished and successful.

High Level Items:
The site uses a simple navigation bar at the top that follows most people’s mental models. Each page has this bar so it is easy to jump from one page to another. There is also a site map option at the bottom of the page if the user does get lost. Also featured at the bottom of the page is a link to their privacy policy and information about Expedia. For the most part, the site is successful in presenting information. The most useful information is presented at the top of the page using text and images. The images throughout the site are aesthetically pleasing and relevant to the page you are currently on. Once you go farther down the page however, there is an abundance of information that is very overwhelming. As described above, there are simple solutions to present this information in a more consistent and clean way. By just following one layout, for example, Expedia would have a much better design interface which would improve the usability of their website.