The booking system on Southwest and United Airlines websites are confusing and not as flexible for customers if they want to check and see the prices for different dates. Virgin gives a big overview of the entire month.
The User Interface of Virgin America is Excellent with Fast Loading, a Logical Step By Step Process, and a Simple Design.
Virgin America's booking system makes it as easy as possible on the customer. It breaks away from the traditional online booking system where customers type in their travel information and pick a flight by the information they have provided. Virgin uses a step by step process, as explained above. Because it was just redone in the past year it is available on all devices. In fact, one of the main goals of the redesign was increasing the amount of flights booked on mobile phones. It works efficiently, allowing you to see all the prices for your flight for each day of the month. It also allows you to easily go back if you make a mistake in the booking process. As you follow along with each step the website "talks you through it" in a way that makes you feel as if someone from Virgin America is there with you, helping you through the booking process. Each decision made is independent from one another as you make your way through booking your flight.
The clean design of the website is very contemporary which goes along with their inflight experience. They use mood lighting in the cabins and leather seats to make flying comfortable and easy.
They offer television screens in the back of every seat back. They allow you to watch cable television, play games, and listen to music. Wifi is also offered as a part of their inflight experience. Virgin America wants the customer to feel as comfortable as possible on and off the plane.
On their website in the About Us category they describe themselves as, "a California-based airline that is on a mission to make flying good again, with brand new planes, attractive fares, top-notch service, and a host of fun, innovative amenities that are reinventing domestic air travel."
Their ability to connect with their customers on an interactive level makes the user interface so successful. It is done smoothly, efficiently, and simply.
Without Distractions Like Advertisements, Car Rentals, and Credit Card Deals Customers Book Flights Twice As Fast On Virgin America.
Southwest Airlines and United Airlines are filled with advertisements that make their website design very busy and distracting from the main point of the site - to book flights. It makes it confusing when there is too much going on. Although this is the traditional way of doing things, it doesn't mean it is the best.
All the extra information offered on Southwest Airlines and United Airlines websites make it overwhelming for the customer. They spend more time trying to figure out how to navigate the website while getting distracted by the advertisements. It slows down the entire booking process. When Virgin America revamped their design they got rid of the advertisements, special offers, and promotions that exist on their competitors home pages. Their design is simple and to the point. The extra offers are nice, but it makes the website less user friendly as it distracts the customers from booking their flights. It might confuse customers, for example, if they see an advertisement on how to save money on a rental car it might make them think they have to use Southwest.com to book their rental car.
Southwest and United Airlines contain many pictures on their websites which often draws attention, but the simplicity of Virgin America is more intriguing because of its attractive design and user friendliness. Virgin America broke free from the traditional booking system and so far, it is doing well for them. According to the awards section on their website they have been ranked as the #1 performing airline in the 2013 and 2014 Airline Quality Rating report.
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| Virgin America's homepage. Simple and free of advertisements |
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| United Airlines homepage |
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| Southwest airlines homepage |
The headline tells me what the article will be about, but I'm not sure it's entirely explanatory. I know that Virgin America has a new user interface, but saying that it is "much better than its competitors" may be more of an opinion. In addition, the first paragraph I think should be more focused on what does make it better than its competitors, with the link leading to the actual interface rather than just the Virgin America website. I feel that I am not getting enough information about the actual product within the first few paragraphs, however the picture does provide the reader with some context as to what it looks like. The next subheadings do a good job of explaining what makes Virgin's process faster, such as eliminating advertisements and using a logical step by step process.The pictures at the bottom also do a nice job of comparing all three websites and their interfaces, where the reader can see that the Virgin America interface has a clean and simple look. In all, I don't think a scanner would learn enough about the new interface by simply glossing over the headline or first few paragraphs. They would know that Virgin has a new step by step booking interface, but I think there could be more important or better info that would explain what was better about it than the other companies, rather than explaining what the interface looked like and how a user would work it.
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