heatsink

It isn't just Finnair. In the past few years, the push to make user interfaces simple has completely jumped the shark. First we went from having bad UI's with feature creep to having simpler UI's, and now we're going right back to having a more complex UI just because you can't find anything anymore.

Read this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/com..._gone_too_far/

Purjelentaja

Which one(s) support that, forward you directly to AY?

Jainzar

Kayak works for me.

FFlash

Looking at your connection example, Finnair should have a 24h lounge at HEL so that you don't need to sleep at Oak Barrel

intuition

Indeed.

User interface and user interaction has become a fashion statement instead of a scientific discipline.
I have two higher educations and one is in Informatics. I feel very sad about the path the industry has taken.

Before, there was a sense of "the inmates are running the asylum" among descion makers, ie tech people are controlling too much and that is why all IT projects gets delayed, runs over budget and fails to meet usage targets. And in some cases this was true.

However, now the inmates are securely strapped down and the asylum is run by toddlers. I've tried to run projects where someone fresh out of evening class "business school" decides on user interaction that defies logic and sets up business logics that can't be adressed in set theory and makes such good paradoxes that make even old Greek thinkers would be impressed.


This one isn't even funny. I cringe watching it because it is just too spot on.

intuition

Like to know that too.



The only thing I know of, is that you can craft your own deep links with the PREFILLED_INPUT options. Sadly, they don't work very well anymore, with the new interface. (The new interface needs for the user to click on items, otherwise the scripts won't run properly and the right input/output fields won't be displayed. So while the deep link will work, you will need to click around to see the result)

Craft your own deep links, crash course:
Dates are YYYYMMDD, fields with prefix B_ means origin, prefix E_ means destination. Field separator is :

Courmisch

I think you meant RVN instead of HEL.

More seriously, can't one deep-link onto AA.com and buy there? unless you specifically want 105-stock of course.

What I really miss is a way to deep-link Value tickets.

intuition

Haha, didn't think anyone would spot that! :-::-::-:

Lappe

Google Flights - not for all routings though, but in general all AY numbers itins seem to work.

Jainzar

Yes they use deep links but for me it removes some annoyance. I can change the dates without reentering everything else.

Purjelentaja

An example of trip from Helsinki to Vietnam, outbound Helsinki to Hanoi, inbound HCMC to Helsinki.

This is what I would like to have in this example case:

• all flights with oneworld carriers
• possibility to choose the flight for each route, with reasonable transfer times, except at HKG before return flight to HEL time for a short visit to the city
• of course with competitive price, booking flights in economy and taking upgrades for Finnair operated legs

Using Matrix I found two reasonable alternatives. First alternative is via Hong Kong, HKG-HAN/SGN-HKG with CX, and on return I preferred enough time for a short visit to the city and found excellent combination meeting those criterias, even for quite good price (see pic 1). Another possibility for outbound flight is via Bangkok, onwards from BKK with Qatar, but a bit pricier (see pic 2).

What I got offered by Finnair web was something totally else, see pics 3 and 4. As you can see the result was not very good, didn’t manage to get what I wanted.

Options for outbound leg Finnair suggests me to take:

• First and quite a lot pricier option via HKG with Dragonair with reasonable transfer time. Apart from the price this options is good.
• Another option is via BKK (on AY95 arriving at 0915), BKK-HAN on Vietnam Airlines leaving at 1555, with transfer time of 6h40mins at BKK, and booking on VN means for instance no lounge access at BKK. There is however, also earlier flights with VN at 1155, but that is not offered at all, neither is another oneworld carrier Qatar at 1355, the first of which would be with much more reasonable transfer time of 2h40mins, and Qatar with a bit longer transfer time but with lounge access. But neither of those is available, but only the late afternoon one with very long transfer time.

For return:

• With CX to HKG, but only one flight option available, with 1h35mins transfer time, which on one hand would be very good, but doesn’t practically have any extra time at HKG, like time to take a shower and eat something in the lounge before the overnight flight. No other earlier flights like the one I would have preferred are available. Interesting to note that codeshare on the same CX flight with AY code is a lot more expensive than with CX code.
• Cheaper alternative is with Vietnam Airlines via Singapore with 4h30mins transfer, not enough time to go to the city, but arriving too early to get boarding passes at transfer check-in (which just like landside check-in opens only 3hrs before flight departure), and without boarding pass no hope of getting in the lounge. Also here no other flight options available.

Result and pricewise there is significant difference between Matrix and AY own booking engine, and comparing the results also pricewise to my criteria set, there is no match. It also seems that Matrix is showing some booking classes available where they actually are not, and thus prices don't match.

Overall experience:

• If looking for anything more complex than simple return on AY flights, the booking engine usually fails
• When iterating the days, it is really annoying that you cannot get back to date selection page, but get to the start page, and have to start all over from giving destinations and dates, starting from scratch
• It seems that number of flight options in the case of my example for each day is limited to 3, which is far too few to allow choosing the option best suitable for need of each customer
• oneworld flights are very obviously not prioritized even to that extent that they would be shown as alternatives
• Flight selection page is very user unfriendly, it needs clicking each option separately to get the flight information, most of the screen space is used for big price boxes with no added value or information
• Booking engine does not allow making any more complex itineraries, even the example I showed here, which is quite simple, does not really work well, not to speak of any more complex ones. Advanced search function would really be needed with enough of options to set. Good example of this is Matrix. I wish there was direct deeplink in Matrix to Finnair booking engine (like there are to some others) allowing to buy the flights found there
• It would be good seeing all cabin classes with prices on flight selection page (economy and business) as it would allow combining one for outbound and another for return
• Sometimes multiplier for AY+ points is shown (e.g. 100%), sometimes only “yes” is shown. At least multiplier should always be shown, but why not show the actual number of points for selection?
• A nice extra feature would be showing number of upgrade seats available already on booking phase, now that has to be looked for elsewhere.
• As a whole the user interface of booking engine is very poor. In addition to the examples mentioned here, it seems that instead of providing all necessary information openly, too much is hidden. Also far too often one ends up in an error page and has to start all over again from beginning. There are loads of well executed and easy to use booking pages which should be taken as example, for instance British Airways (an example of a good feature on ba.com is that when you click the flight number it shows flight details and also booking class for each price option shown on the page, they also very openly tell which cabin class each price gives and what you get) or also American Airways.

Overall the booking engine could do much better, not at all happy with it, which means that quite often I just have to book the flights elsewhere!

theBro

Very well said. I only have one OT nitpick

I have been admitted to the lounge in Singapore with no problem when flashing my plat card and explaining that I cannot get the boarding pass as the transfer desk is not yet open. Unfortunately they cannot print the BP in the lounge but you have to go get it yourself once the desk is open.

UpperDeck87K

Just yesterday I was searching for flights and got frustrated for these exact usability proglems... I'd love to join the UX session, I still can't edit the wiki, though.

intuition

Purjelentaja have made some very good points. I have made a list myself, some things have been mentioned by others before.



General design
Make sure you use screen estate wisely - Do not assume all users are on iphone/ipad. Users on desktop platforms do not need design elements in the size of 5x15 cm!

Desktop and handheld not only differs in screen sizes and input devices. They also differ in usage. Do not just apply the user scenarios from handheld to the desktop.

Do try to make a design that fits on a normal desktop screen.

Localize. Use appropriate date and number formats (decimal character and character for 1000-grouping) for each country. Make sure date pickers start the week on the correct day for each country!

Use your signature colours wisely. Don't highlight stuff with your signature magenta unless it is something really really important!




General search input
Allow input from keyboard, not only from mouse or by tap.

Make the interface require less clicks (many input selectors now requires 3 or more clicks. One to open, one to select value and one to close selector, instead of the normal single click-and-release)

Make sure tab moves between input fields and in a logical order

Accept 3-letter IATA airport and city codes (today, you can input 3-letter IATA codes, but UI requires a script to run which shows a list of airport's full names which user *must* click on. If no click, search will not work)

Accept date input from keyboard, as well as from date selectors. (Allow dates to be typed from keyboard, also allow date selector to be manipulated from keyboard by arrow keys perhaps?)

Don't just present "today" as default in all date selectors. Choose better defaults:
Allow check-box input from keyboard (tab order includes checkboxes, space bar toggles of/on)

Allow search to be started from from keybaord (CR trigger search-button)

Make search for Economy and Business not mutually exclusive. Ie allow us to search both economy and busines fares in the same search

Add search filters. The purpose of the filters is to address the problems that comes from search result matrix only shows cheapest price. User might click into one date, only to find out that shown availability is on an idiotic route, on an airline you don't want to fly on or in a ticket type you don't want. Filters will help:

With search engine tuned for "cheapest" regardless of other parameters we always get a lot of useless search results. Adding filters would make it easier to find cheapest price within my travel preferences: No 23h stopover in HEL, No BA-flights, a fare that earns 100%


Let these search filters be present in all screens. Make it possible to interact with them in all screens. Ie let me specify filters when I search AND let me adjust the filters when I see the search result on screen. (If my search produced a lot of alternatives that are not interesting, I can quickly de-clutter the screen by selecting "No BA flights" or "No long lay overs" for example.

Filters should operate on the fetched result set, ie enabling/disabling a filter should not initiate a new search.



Multi segment search
Adjust number of segments automatically. If 2 segments have been filled out, then automatically add input boxes for segment 3.

Prefill departure field of the next segment with destination of last segment. Prefill date with a sensible value (not Today!)

If the last segment is not completed, then user just didn't want to search for that segment. Just exclude it from search (instead of giving error message)

Allow for more than 4 segments to be included in search

Allow for more advanced routings. For instance, allow trips to go through HEL more than once

Allow awards to be searched from multi segment search



Search result
Allow adjustment of search parameters without the need to go back to first page. (Before you could adjust dates in search result, this has been removed)

Make minor date adjustments easy, for instance add "Next day" and "previous day" buttons. In the multi day matrix similar "Next week", "Previous week"

Adjust dates cleverly - if user asks "Next week" on departure and that makes return date invalid, then just add week to return as well

Make it clear what sort order has been used. Let the user easily chose another sort order (price, flight departure time, flight arrival time, flight duration time, ...)

Make it extremely clear if search results includes mixed travel classes

Make it extremely clear if search results includes mixed mixed airlines

Do NOT show search results that doesn't fit the users search parameters.

heatsink

I'm not sure this is entirely on topic, but it's just ridiculous... It's like everything that could possibly go wrong did.

Last month, I got the 89 euro upgrade ad email for both segments HEL-ZRH-HEL and decided to use them:

1. Bad UX: The options I was presented with were something like "Olen Finnair Plus-jäsen" and "En ole jäsen". However, the extended description reveals that I need to select "En..." to pay with money. Why not "Maksa pisteillä" and "Maksa rahalla"? Surely no non-member will think they can use points, so the headings are completely superfluous.
2. One of the upgrades failed silently without an error message.
3. Even worse, the website actually sent a confirmation email. The only reason I noticed was that I tried to change my seat. How is it even possible that the email is sent before the process is 100% complete?
4. I contacted support and they fixed it, but now my credit card has actually been charged three times instead of two!
5. The points ended up being registered at 50% despite the ticket being Value.