Booking a flight online is supposed to be easy nowadays, isn’t it? Unfortunately, most travel booking websites have fallen far short of expectations in terms of speed, simplicity, convenience, and reliability. In other words, as you probably know, navigating through the slow-loading pages of a multi-tiered booking process is no small task, especially on a mobile device. Although there are a few major sites that are ahead of the lesser known competitors in terms of site design, when it comes down to functionality, they all seem to suffer from similar bugs and deficits. To solve this utterly annoying yet ubiquitous problem, the developers at Fantasy Interactive have produced an airline site template that fixes all the weaknesses found in conventional online booking systems.
Bringing Everything on to a Single Page
Nobody likes playing the back and forth game that’s almost inevitable whenever you’re using a typical step-based interface to book a flight. The designers at Fantasy Interactive imagined a platform that would let you book a flight while viewing all essential information on a single screen. Users can sort results based on price, seat class, number of stops, duration, and departure/arrival destinations. Although such criteria are already available on many travel booking sites, Fantasy’s interface takes it a step further by displaying the route on a map alongside the interactive search results. Furthermore and perhaps more importantly, as DesignRush pointed out in their coverage of the template, all data is already loaded along with the page, so there are no frustrating intermediate loading times that slow down the booking process.
Using Tabbed Navigation Instead of Linear Steps
Multi-tasking and examining a wide range of options on a conventional airline site has historically been a challenging and tedious process because everything is segmented into categories and steps. By centralizing the process of comparing flights, cruises, vehicle rentals, bus/train tickets, hotel accommodations, and other booking needs into a single tabbed interface you can effectively eliminate the hassle of having to jump around from page to page. Keeping everything in the field of view throughout the process also ensures the user doesn’t get confused and/or sidetracked. Of course, the drastic increase in browsing and booking speed would not only benefit users; it would also be a tremendous advantage to airlines and comparison companies because they’d be able to accommodate more users per day.
Focusing on Intuitiveness and Responsiveness
If you were to attend any of the top web design events and seminars, you’d undoubtedly notice that one of the most popular topics is responsive design – the creation of interfaces that react quickly and can be displayed optimally across a range of devices and displays. As many designers are looking to bring the user-friendliness of mobile apps to the desktop, it’s not surprising that Fantasy Interactive has a made their airline booking site practically self-explanatory for the end user.
Envisioning a Booking Process That Takes Less Than 5 Minutes Every Time
Comparing and booking a flight online can take some patience, especially if you’re on a budget or are indecisive. When you throw in all the other accommodations that have to be considered, the research and comparison alone can take the average user up to 20-30+ minutes on a typical travel site. Thankfully, the prototype airline site developed by Fantasy Interactive gives online travel enthusiasts the hope that we might be soon able to trim that time down to just 2-5 minutes on average.