Only slightly off-topic, but since Ding is part of southwest.com, here are a few Ding-related suggestions:
1. When I see "Offer ends 3:00pm CST" I always have to translate to my own timezone. There are two ways to solve this: (a) you already have my "home zip code" which maps to a TZ, or (b) as this is a Windows executable, you could easily access the TZ of the machine (i.e. the windows environment). Translate to my own TZ so I never have to see "CST" again!
2. When I click the "offers" link, I see a list of all offers. I have to search down for my home city each and every time (the new dropdown is nice, but not enough). Rather, I want to see offers from my "home airport" listed first, or for my choice in the "city dropdown" to be persistent across sessions.
3. Better yet, you know my "home airport", so list a summary (or "teaser") of the offers out of my home airport directly within the Ding! application. This way, I only have to open the web page if something looks interesting.
4. Better proxy support. Just use the IE settings, rather than have to enter it again in the Preferences.
5. This is more techincal, but the when the app has a network error, it doesn't do a good job of trying again. E.g. I have a proxy set up, but when I am away from work, I have to VPN first. But Ding starts before I can start VPN, so it always fails. After I VPN, Ding is not smart enough to know that it should try connecting again. Other apps, e.g. Google Talk, have figured this out.
6. A "force refresh" link to refresh to latest offer, to make sure I'm am not seeing stale content.
7. An option to display an alert (a little notification window like "new mail" in outlook or thunderbird) in addition to or instead of the audio indication - my sound is off at work. Ideally, the alert should list the destinations from your home airport that are on sale (see #3 above).
8. When clicking on an offer in the Ding! window, today it re-uses one of your existing browser windows, at least with IE. If you were working on something in that window, you lost it. A better approach would be to open a new window, like what happens when you click on the "you've got mail" popup in Yahoo Messenger.
And, I'm reading all the great suggestions. Please don't misinterpret my delay in responding as SWA not caring. Just that sometimes other projects (many of which I think you'll like...) mean I have time to read, but not always post thoughtful replies.
I plan to categorize many of your suggestions and send them over to our southwest.com team. Some of them are already in the works, one is pretty much done, and others are good ideas to consider.
Your feedback is always appreciated and we especially like to hear what's working for you and what isn't about our web site. I can't guarantee that the "fixes" will come quickly, but at least you know we're aware.
How about after you choose your flight(s) during the booking process and the system brings up the page for inputting names of passengers, you could just input their RR#s and it would populate the First/Last name fields automatically? Gets quite annoying having to type all that, and having to check the spelling for typos.
Or am I missing some option?
And another: register a departure/destination city pair, and if the RT fare gets down to some preselected level, you get an email?
I get emails like this from lots of travel providers.
Last edited by toomanybooks; Jan 19, 06 at 3:52 pm.
Only slightly off-topic, but since Ding is part of southwest.com, here are a few Ding-related suggestions:
8. When clicking on an offer in the Ding! window, today it re-uses one of your existing browser windows, at least with IE. If you were working on something in that window, you lost it. A better approach would be to open a new window, like what happens when you click on the "you've got mail" popup in Yahoo Messenger.
Absolutely. I have lost work several times because of this. I use Mozilla firefox.
What version of Firefox are you using? In 1.5 the Tabs section of the Options screen has an option to open links from other applications (such as DING!) in either new windows or new tabs within the most recent window.
How about after you choose your flight(s) during the booking process and the system brings up the page for inputting names of passengers, you could just input their RR#s and it would populate the First/Last name fields automatically?
I think there would be a security/privacy issue with that -- revealing someone's name knowing only their RR#.
As it is, if you LOGIN before or during the reservation process, your name is automatically filled in. Not sure if this solves your particular issue, because it sounds like you are booking for two people at once.
Go to tools>options>tabs
Select "Open links from other applications in...New Window"
This is true for Firefox 1.5. There are similar settings in 1.0.7, I just don't remember their exact location.
Thanks for the tip. I looked, and Internet Explorer has something similar. Click Tools | Options, then the Advanced tab. Then UN-check "Reuse windows for launching shortcuts". Seems to work, but the Ding! application should do this by default (most other apps seem to get this right nowadays).
I think there would be a security/privacy issue with that -- revealing someone's name knowing only their RR#.
As it is, if you LOGIN before or during the reservation process, your name is automatically filled in. Not sure if this solves your particular issue, because it sounds like you are booking for two people at once.
I guess that makes sense, but maybe they could set it so that people sharing the same home address all come up together.
Thanks for the tip. I looked, and Internet Explorer has something similar. Click Tools | Options, then the Advanced tab. Then UN-check "Reuse windows for launching shortcuts". Seems to work, but the Ding! application should do this by default (most other apps seem to get this right nowadays).
You can also hold the shift key down while clicking on the link and it will open in a new window.
I guess that makes sense, but maybe they could set it so that people sharing the same home address all come up together.
Wife, kids......
AA.com and UAL.com have a decent solution to this: you can save "favorite travelers" other than yourself in your profile (first name, last name, and FF#).
