Having analyzed the 3 portals, we would like to make some recommendations in which we think will improve their ability in fulfilling their users’ needs.
We would like to make some recommendations based on the following criteria:
Design
Additional Features
The aspects to be considered for the above two criteria include:
Present and future needs
Aims of the portal
Interactivity elements
Design
In terms of design, we recommend that all 3 portals should include more Asia content on their Web page. They could include travel packages to China, India, Malaysia, Thailand and other exotic parts of Asia. This information should be highlight with pictures of the places of interest, possibly including moving animations of these places, people and cultures. In other words, the access to Asia links and products should be more prominent. The reason for this is the growing importance of Asia as a destination both for business and for leisure.
Additional Features
Features like language translators or links to these translators, which help translate Web pages of the links that are directed by the portals to Asia sites, could be provided. This will be especially important for sites in China, Korea and Japan, where many of the pages are in the respective language instead of English.
In light of the recent events of terrorism, highlighted by 911 in the US, the portals could also include more information on counter-terrorism. For example, they could provide tips on how to react in the event of a plane hijack or other catastrophic events.
The aim of a travel portal is to provide all travel related information and tools in a concise and easily accessible manner.
In terms of fulfilling the aim of the portal, we feel that both Expedia.com and Travelocity.com are already very well organized and informative. They both met the aim of the portal.
However, there is definitely room for improvement for Flights.com. It lacked information crucial features like weather, airport information, driving directions and flights status on its page. Its main page layout is also not very user friendly and informative, barely fulfilling the informative needs of a travel portal. All these could be added to Flights.com to make it better.
All 3 portals could consider adding an interactive feature that enhances “real-time” response and reply from a human operator in the form of a “CLICK ME FOR MORE INFORMATION / ASK QUESTIONS” moving animated icon.
We found this interactive feature in one of the online hotel portal operated by a United Kingdom chain. It allows online direct interaction in the form of a “chat service” with a person that has knowledge about the issues and gives direct and relevant answers to the user.
In order to view these portals, users will need to have either Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. Internet Explorer and Netscape are the two Web browsers commonly available that reside on a computer and are used to locate and display Web pages. These Browsers allow you to click on hypertext links to retrieve information via the Web, and offer additional features for navigating and managing the Web.
Both IE and Netscape look somewhat similar and normally contain the same sections offering fairly equivalent functions but only in different naming and terms. Basically, both are graphical browsers, which means that they can display graphics as well as text, and can be used to view and interact with many multimedia formats, including sound, video, and other programs.
The main technical difference between these two browsers lies in the version of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and Active X plug-ins. Internet Explorer uses Microsoft Java Virtual Machine whereas Netscape uses Sun Java Virtual Machines. JVM is essential in running java script written sites with superior data security tools e.g. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and especially in E-commerce and Electronic Banking Web applications, where the required version of JVM must be available in order for execution. Furthermore, Active X plug-ins are not defaulted in Netscape and very frequently, users need to purchase or download a third party Active X provider to run the Active X required sites.
From our research, both browsers do not differ from each other in terms of operational capabilities when viewing informational pages and therefore has not much impact on the three Web portals, which we have chosen for comparison, as they are all in general, information providers.
An important point to note further in this study is the transactional services through credit card billings offered by the portals. In many instances, users might encounter problems when accessing ecommerce transactional services websites under different Operating systems, namely Macintosh or PCs depending on the Java language versions required by the site. To proceed further, we went a step ahead to test out the transactional services available in these three web portals only to find that all three portals have no problems when accessing the billing sections under the two different browsers in either Mac or PCs.
There are 4 main categories involved in cost analysis in a successful Web Portal. Namely the Consumer, the Information Provider, the Advertiser and the “Web Host”.
Consumer:
All Consumers accessing the 3 selected Web Portals (Travel Industries) do not need to pay a single cent to obtain the various information provided in the site except for their means of Internet connections e.g. ADSL, Cable or Dial-up. Ranging from 2 cents a minute for MySingtel Internet dialup to SGD$70 a month for unlimited Singapore Cable Vision cable connection in Singapore.
Information Provider:
In the 3 selected Web Portals for the Travel Industry, Information Provider here includes the different Travel agents, Hotels, Resorts, Car Rentals, etc. In this competitive dot.com era, information providers are usually charged depending on the reputation & establishment of the host, information content and number of host competing for the project.
Advertiser:
Advertising contributes to a fair share of Web revenues globally therefore advertising costs would also be a considerable amount for the Advertiser (Advertisers can also be the Information Providers). Costs of advertisements are generally being charged base on number of “Clicks” & “Banners”. Examples of Advertisers in the chosen Travel industries Web portals include Casinos, Tour Package providers, Cruise companies, and Credit Cards companies.
Web Host:
Basically all that is required to host Websites is a PC or Server with Internet connection depending on the number of expected hits in any particular time. In general, to host a Website with 1000 hits at anytime requires a recommended hardware specification of 333M Speed, 256MB Ram, 1-2 GB Free disk space and an average Internet connection speed of 56K-128Kb depending on the size of content.
Other Elements worth considering adding into the three selected Web Portals in order to enhance them as a One-Stop-Shop Travel Industry Web Portal includes up-to-date write-ups by industry experts/professionals on in-flight emergency procedures, Medical & Health Information onboard e.g. ECS & Conceiving info, Critical analysis and information regarding different airlines e.g. Crash info, Cabin Crew Service, Seating, Food & Beverage Ratings.
An electronic trip consultation service based on the individuals’ preferred budget, duration of trip, distance, culture, environment, ethnic groups, etc to help the consumers choose the various tour packages offered by the Website will definitely attract more potential and repeating consumers hitting the site.
Ultimately, useful links to FBI or CIA information on Hijacks to help tourists best react in event, or even the portraits of suspects/potential hijackers to allow early detection or recognition of suspects to prevent tragedies serves as absolute advantage in this era of terrorism threats.
Every year brings new mistakes. In 2002, several of the worst mistakes in Web design were related to poor email integration. The number one mistake, however, was lack of pricing information, followed by overly literal search engines. As the Web grows, websites continue to come up with ways to annoy users. The following are ten design mistakes that were particularly good at punishing users and costing site owners business in 2002.
No Prices
Inflexible Search Engines
Horizontal Scrolling
Fixed Font Size
Blocks of Text
JavaScript in Links
Infrequently Asked Questions in FAQ
Collecting Email Addresses Without a Privacy Policy
URL > 75 Characters
Mailto Links in Unexpected Locations
Interaction design must meet users' expectations. The more that things behave consistently, the more users understand what they can do and the greater their sense of system mastery. Violated expectations create a sense of oppression, where technology rules humans and reduces their ability to steer the interaction.