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Old 11th September 2008, 09:54 AM
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Thumbs down New "Specials" Fare information screen - Horrible

Bookings - Flights - Domestic Specials - Australia

Ugh! One has to scroll down to see there fares; dates are not clearly displayed. Nice programming but an absolute w@nk.

The previous page listed all the cheapest fares from the page's origin to available destinations. Clicking the destination would reveal various fares for various dates. This would generally fit on the on page so you could see all at once.

The 33 or so ex SYD would fit on the one page - now to see what I am after I need to page down up to 5 times.

With the dates of differing prices; they are now shown in a graph - one cannot readily discern the exact dates at all!

This is what happens when IT people have their way with confused business representatives.

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Old 11th September 2008, 11:10 AM
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re: New "Specials" Fare information screen - Horrible

Hmm....nice eye-candy (interesting icons for some of the lesser known destinations).

Definitely many points off the printing-practicality column, as serfty has alluded to. On the other hand, if you open up the filter you can see what sales are on plus how much longer they are going for. That second bit of info is a nice addition, considering the recent sale which just ended seem to go on for ages. It didn't dawn on me until one day I was happening to be viewing the old style Domestic Specials page and I saw all of those clock icons next to destinations!

Looks like to find fares one will have to be more search-savvy. For Firefox users, this is nice and easy with the / key. Still, not having them "all at a glance" is annoying. Plus, as AFF'ers, we would probably prefer to search for the IATA code

Quote:
Originally Posted by serfty
This is what happens when IT people have their way with confused business representatives.
I thought it was more a case of the business/marketeers flexing their muscle towards the IT people. Surely it is much easier to program a simple table compared to this more complex mess of icons and illogical graphs.

But to compensate, from an HCI perspective QF still has one of the best usable websites in the world. Especially when we start considering both IE and FF. I've seen and used much worst, and these are not your hole-in-the-wall companies - I mean big ones.
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Old 11th September 2008, 11:54 AM
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... Surely it is much easier to program a simple table compared to this more complex mess of icons and illogical graphs. ...
But not as much fun! I was a young you beaut IT guy once and would have delighted in programming such. (I can just imaging the pleasure the developer had .) Of course, after a few years in the real world, the KISS principle was drummed into me.
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But to compensate, from an HCI perspective QF still has one of the best usable websites in the world. Especially when we start considering both IE and FF. I've seen and used much worst, and these are not your hole-in-the-wall companies - I mean big ones.
But still; for me they have reduced it's functionality. Perhaps they think they can increase sales ...
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... I thought it was more a case of the business/marketeers flexing their muscle towards the IT people.
As I posted similarly on FT:
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... perhaps it's the spawn of some Myopic Marketing Mavens after a long lunch with some of their IT mates ...
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Old 12th September 2008, 06:59 AM
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Re: New "Specials" Fare information screen - Horrible

Looks like the twister version of the site... Much like the Twister phone - you know the one with buttons that are about 2inches round...
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Old 12th September 2008, 11:45 AM
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Re: New "Specials" Fare information screen - Horrible

Quote:
Originally Posted by serfty View Post
This is what happens when IT people have their way with confused business representatives.
If an IT person really designed that it would just be a basic table
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Old 12th September 2008, 06:57 PM
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Re: New "Specials" Fare information screen - Horrible

I noticed it earlier on today and thought that it may have been a website glitch. Shouldn't take long to get used to it.

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This is what happens when IT people have their way with confused business representatives.
The user gets their way most times and when the request goes pear shaped it is easy to just blame IT.
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Old 13th September 2008, 05:39 AM
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Requires adobe flash player 8 or higher to view
... I am posting from AKL Dom QP; not even the QP PC's can load these pages correctly.

(NO chance at all of ascertaining validity dates until Qantas catch up!)
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Old 16th September 2008, 08:33 PM
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Re: New "Specials" Fare information screen - Horrible

What would be great is if it could remember what city pair you fly most. I travel about 80% of the tme between Melbourne and Brisbane. I care little that Melbourne to Perth is $10 cheaper for two weeks next year.

Is there any pattern to when these sales come out? The only one I've noticed is the one about a week before Christmas - when the last thing you want to spend your money on is plane fares for the next winter.

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