Designing the Friendly Skies, by Jeffrey Veen

Designing the Friendly Skies

The airline industry is a mess. The established carriers are being cannibalized by discounters exploiting consumer willingness to trade a few dollars of savings for comfort and service. Byzantine fare rules multiplied by desperate cost cutting has made travel -- especially this summer -- nightmare of dissatisfaction.

The New York Times recently drew attention to one outcome of all of this: airlines are rapidly redesigning their web sites hoping to cling to increasingly dissatisfied customers. They've pitched this as a benefit on both sides of the transaction. Customers get more flexibility and control over their travel through features like online upgrades, printable boarding passes, and the like. And the airlines save money every time someone uses their site rather than calling or interacting at the counter.

Of course, these redesigns aren't easy. A vice president of marketing for US Airways justifies the generally poor user experience found on these sites, saying:

"Technologically, airline Web sites are as complicated a retail site as you're ever going to see."

Well, duh.

Airline web sites are complex and confusing because the way airlines do business is complex and confusing. The variable pricing model these companies use is at direct odds with their customers' goals; this has traditionally worked because the airlines could obfuscate their data. In an age of nearly unlimited access, that strategy just makes people frustrated. Their attempt to redesign their web sites using "customer friendly" techniques is shining a cold, hard light on just how unfriendly their operations are. Good design can't fix broken business models.

Good design isn't about pretty or ugly. It's not even about usability or intuitive interaction. Good design solves problems. The airlines prove that even the best design techniques are worthless if designers don't have access to the very root of the problems they're trying to solve.

This entry was written by Jeffrey Veen and posted 21 June 2006 at 8:59 PM. It was filed under Web Design.

Comments

1. On 21 June 2006 at 9:39 PM Gerald Buckley wrote:

Jeffrey - I was the Director of Internet Marketing at Thrifty Car Rental. Routinely worked with Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and our airline partners.

Let me tell you - The value players are the ones making hay on the levelled playing field of the web. Cuz when it all falls out ALL the sites suck in one way or another... some more than others. So, at the end of the day it's about $$, availability and trust.

I rent a LOT of cars online. Not a single one of the car rental companies (to this day) sends me a "thanks for renting, how was it?" email. They can sure send me crap to consider them... Never a thank you. Sure, I still rent. But, I'm liking taxi's more and more (and we said taxis weren't our competition... WRONG!)

2. On 22 June 2006 at 5:49 AM Anonymous wrote:

Absolutely.

3. On 23 June 2006 at 10:32 AM James Higginbotham wrote:

Jeffrey - Preach it, bro! I had to actually put together a site for an airline and found out, first hand, how bad this industry can be. I've never seen so many problems all in one place, from operations to customer pricing to fear of competitors (by finding out rates 2 hours before they need them published).

Some airlines are now achieving the distruption level that is needed to stir up this industry. Unfortunately, some of the airlines are too busy doing the same thing to realize it.

4. On 23 June 2006 at 3:10 PM wrote:

For a fresh alternative, have a look here:

http://www.norwegian.no/sw7127.asp

(Yes, it's for a Norwegian airliner). Try the low fare calendar. Works beatifully.

5. On 26 June 2006 at 1:10 AM Jonas Strandell wrote:

The people that set out to develop the site for Ryanair for instance are, without any doubt, as bonkers as they get.

They do offer flights at extremely low costs. And once you have looked up a flight you are notified that there are, of course, taxes to be added. Uh, fair enough.

Then for each click of confirmatio (there are several) it just seem to pile up on you. Additional costs for checking in a bag, and my personal favourite when they charge you 15 dollars for paying with your Visa/Mastercard. Well, is there any other way of paying?

Please insert bills into your CD-tray for transfer to Ryanair?

6. On 29 June 2006 at 5:59 AM Hans Gerwitz wrote:

Good design can't fix broken business models.
Sure it can, when applied to said business models.

First EDI and then the Internet dramatically changed the way companies do business with the supply (and demand) chain. It's obviously an oversimplification, but in my past life in EAI the white-haired gents often commented that XML changed business as dramatically as the computer.

We're already seeing some effects of the social media web, where the marketing and PR industries are turning upside-down as listening to consumers becomes at least as important to talking at them.

So, I hope it's inevitable that the next stage for business is an evaluation from the outside-in, with the (customer experience = revenue) equation given the weight it deserves.

Another thought while I'm rambling: the airline industry probably is more antiquated than most because they jumped into the world of IT early. It served them well, but also established a "works good enough" baseline that's now an entrenched, stagnant model while the world passes them by. If our government subsidized railroads to the extent they do trucking and flight, perhaps this dinosaur industry would have motivation to stay innovative.

7. On 5 July 2006 at 4:31 PM EricaLucci wrote:

Amen! As a constant traveler, for both work and leisure, I am always frustrated with airline websites/business model. I'd love to see a major change in this industry!

8. On 17 July 2006 at 1:51 AM שש בש באינטרנט wrote:

It served them well, but also established a "works good enough" baseline that's now an entrenched, stagnant model while the world passes them by

9. On 17 July 2006 at 1:54 AM Will agason wrote:

I've never seen so many problems all in one place, from operations to customer pricing to fear of competitors (by finding out rates 2 hours before they need them published).