Comparison of 3 Airlines Sites - Case Study Example

Report: Comparison of 3 airline’s sites due: This report investigates the quality of three identified airline’s websites. The identified airline companies are - American Airlines (United States), Gulf air (Bahrain) and Qatar Airways (Qatar). Websites in this digital era are vital to company/business growth as it is the most preferred mediums that can be used to reach new markets hence generate more sales. Without a high class website that entices visitors and provides the company/business with a way that help capture information then the business is not using the invention of the internet to the fullest (Shelly2009). Introduction about the Airline industry Air travel is large and growing industry. It enables economic growth, international investment, world trade, and tourism and is consequently central to the globalization taking place in many other different industries. In the past period, air travel has grown tremendously. Introduction of the airline companies Three airline companies will be discussed in this paper. They include American Airlines, Qatar Airways, and Gulf Air. 1. American Airlines American Airlines are a major United States’ airline with its headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. It drives a wide international and domestic network i.e. the Caribbean, North America, Asia, South America, and Europe. Its path network cores around five hubs in New York, Chicago, Los Miami, Angeles, and Fort Worth/Dallas. American Airlines are slice of the One-world airline alliance and organizes fares, services, and scheduling with Japan Airlines and Qantas in the transpacific region and British Airways and Iberia in the transatlantic market (Szurovy, 2003). 2. Qatar Airways It is one of state owned world’s 5-star airline linking over 100 destinations, international across Europe, Central Asia, Far East, Middle East, South Asia, North America, Africa, and South America among other destinations. It is the flag carrier of Qatar with its headquarters in the Qatar Airways Tower located in Doha (Fojt, 2006). 3. Gulf Air Gulf air is the principal flag carrier of the Bahrain Kingdom with its headquarters in Muharraq. The airline runs scheduled services to at least 30 destinations in at least 20 countries across Africa, Europe and Asia. Its main operation center is based in Bahrain International Airport with major destinations in London, Paris, Dubai, Mumbai, Delhi, Karachi and Frankfurt among others (Fojt, 2006). Is the title informative? The web title in any site should be information oriented, informative. Of the three sites American airline is more informative based on the title of the site. The use of airplane on its title clearly shows that the site is about airlines even before reading. Illustrations and informative versus distractions of illustrations Illustrations are appropriate and informative rather than being distractions for instance graphical illustrations on the left hand side of Gulf air site are very appropriate and informative rather than distractors as the provide links to important pages of the site that would otherwise be difficult to trace Contrast of text with background colors Readability of the three sites is different. Both Gulf Air and American Airlines sites have employed a visible color (blue) for the heading that is an eye friendly. Qatar Airways have same font color (black), size for both the text and headings; it’s only that the headings are in bold. If there is the use background color or images, then the text should be in a color that can only be seen. Make use of a color scheme that matches and is attractive to the eye. Use of white space in between different types of content makes a page easier to view (Shelly et al., 2009). Layout and navigability of the site Among the three sites, the best in ease of navigation is that of Gulf air has it has two main navigation techniques. These techniques are Use of drop down menus and the slider while Qatar and American airways have the slider and the common menus. Visitor (s) should be able to find information with minimum or no hassle and hindrance. In general point of view American Airline site is more attractive, there is use of attractive and matching color. Example blue has been used as its theme color (Zeldman, 2003). All the three sites can comfortably be viewed without the requirement of scrolling left and right. As at the period of this report the three sites were comfortably viewed across different devices A Website should easily be viewable in all screen sizes of screen (Personal computer, Tablet, IPad, phones e.t.c) without having to scroll horizontally (Henderson, 2006). The three website have a common objective of informing potential customers, selling their service which is air travel. All in all the clarity of the said objective is different. Qatar airways website presents more than one viewpoint. The viewpoint that the site present are airline view, associated services offered, and complementary services (Zeldman, 2003). Functionality of Links  In the three sites, all links are descriptive pointing to relative content. All the airline links provided do not redirect us to another site. However, there are a couple of links that lead to other subpages within the site as in the case of American and Qatar Airlines. For example, in American Airlines plan travel link leads to other subpages i.e. flights, hotels, cars, activities, travel destinations etc. In Qatar Airlines book link is comprised of several subpages i.e. book, offers, booking information, where we fly, and corporate solutions. Each of these sub links are divided into several other sub links in relation to the topic. I.e. where we fly sub link has destinations and route map links under it. Gulf air has its links clearly shown in different parts of the main page; they can clearly be identified compared to the other two sites. Linking of sub-topics to other sites that provide reliable and relevant information The multiple links from the main, index page lead to the main sub-topics in the three websites. Source of all subtopics in the site are from the main page of the site. The links are correctly and efficiently pointing to a page(s) with the next related information with the previous page (Beaird, 2010). All the linked sub-topics developed well in two of the three sites, American airways and Gulf air. Some of the links on the Qatar are leading to if not a different site up to a point one feels he/she is on the wrong site. Concise introduction with a synopsis of the sites purpose American has perfectly handled the issue of clear and to the point as it has made use white space and the content is well summarized for easy scheming. Visitors should have a pure understanding of what your website is all about when they visit it. Through study, it has been proven that people do not like to read computer screens. Therefore, having information that is clear and to the point will keep visitors visiting the site. Visitors should be in a position to scheme your main information without any struggle (Zeldman, 2003). Think about the people who would be absorbed in visiting your site and not self-interest. If you are planning a web site about razor blades and shaving cream for the male species, the site ought to have a masculine sense to it (Zeldman, 2003). Contact information of the Author Contact information is available in all the three sites but with different ease of access. Contact information is well presented on the site of Gulf air. In American Airline, it is a challenging task to locate the contact information. Visitors are more probable to fill out the form to connect with you than clicking on the e-mail link. Always style things easy for your customers especially contacting you. You can as well incorporate social media plugins to make contact process easy for the visitors. None of the three airline has the contact information of the author(s) of different articles. In the three sites there is no identification of the content’s author (Beaird, 2010). Across different browsers, the three sites were compatible with most common browsers. These browsers are Opera, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer among others. Try your website in the most popular browsers to make sure everything is displayed properly as per your expectations. Various forms of the same browser also display differently. It is a worthy idea to have a program on your computer that inspects browser and version compatibility (Beaird, 2010). American Airline site is the best in terms of consistency in design. Including the homepage and all the other pages have the same appearance. Qatar airways and Gulf air site has a good consistency too with the exception of the home page with easy ways of navigating from one page to another. Apart from the homepage that slightly may have special appeal, all the other pages should have regular design. When circumnavigating other pages on the website, the users should feel not he/she has landed on a different website (Lawrence & Tavakol, 2007). Site’s Objectives A great percentage of all the three sites present both facts and opinions. They all have a slogan that directly or indirectly shows the individuals companies are best which is a personal opinion. Personally I have learned quite a lot of services offered by different airline companies (Shelly et al., 2009). Overall message of the site Apart from clients reviews on the services provide by the airlines, most of the other information is biased since it is based on peoples’ opinions. To sell a product it is believed client is told what she or he wants to hear, to achieve this all the arguments are based on positive opinions (Henderson, 2006). Recommendations and major steps for the new website of the company 1. Design The finest websites are visually attractive and inviting. With a good designer the company’s (entrepreneur) site can become an online company portal that strengthens entrepreneur brand and tempts users to explore your company or product line. It is, therefore, of paramount essence to consider a good design for the site (Lawrence & Tavakol, 2007). 2. Content Once users have been lured into your site with design elements, quality content will be needed to keep them glued. Effective site content consists of sensibly chosen words that have been tactically written to create a durable value proposition and a clear conversion path. The content should be portrayed a positive unspoken message to the users/visitors (Zeldman, 2003). 3. User-friendliness Navigability and over the user-friendliness is must elements of a successful business site. Todays online customers expect the ability to quickly trace the content that is significant to them and to smoothly navigate the site with the lowest number of mouse clicks. This will encourage your first time visitors to come back and also recommend their friends and relatives (Lawrence & Tavakol, 2007). 4. Functionality All the elements of company’s website should work faultlessly. You need to repair all the page errors and poorly created website elements. When visitors encounter such a problem, they can get upset and leave the site with no return. Hence, one needs to check appropriately operational of external and internal pages, access to the contact page, site search, and customer support page (Zeldman, 2003). 5. Consistency in Design Excluding the homepage which may have a slightly different plea, all the other pages should have a steady design. When circumnavigating to other pages on the website, the users ought not feel that have landed on a different website, company. All pages of the website should undoubtedly display the logo and its tagline of the company (Lawrence & Tavakol, 2007). All the three sites none of them is fully equipped, American airline site has most of the requirements fulfilled. It needs some amendments such as including contact information, email of the author. The Gulf airline and Qatar airways are not band of, they just need few correction discussed and they will be good. References Beaird, J. (2010). The principles of beautiful web design. Collingwood, Australia: Sitepoint. Fojt, M. (2006). The airline industry. Bradford, England: Emerald Group Pub. Henderson, C. (2006). Building scalable web sites. Sebastopol, CA: OReilly. Gulf Air. (n.d.). www.gulfair.com. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from http://www.gulfair.com/English/Pages/default.aspx Lawrence, D., & Tavakol, S. (2007). Balanced website design: Optimising aesthetics, usability and purpose. New York: Springer. Qatar Airways Qatar. (n.d.). Qatar Airways Qatar. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from http://www.qatarairways.com/qa/en/homepage.page?gclid=COOJnuS1h74CFbShtAod5mgAFw&CID=SXQA06644003730065004040000&s_kwcid=AL!3739!3!32548900456!p!!g!!الخطوط%20القطرية&ef_id=UZAEhQAAAMFMK3Cq:2014 Shelly, G. B., Napier, H. A., & Rivers, O. N. (2009). Web design: Introductory concepts and techniques. Boston, Mass: Course Technology. Szurovy, G. (2003). Classic American airlines. Osceola, Wis: MBI. The new American is arriving. (n.d.).American Airlines. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from https://www.aa.com/homePage.do?locale=en_US&pref=true Zeldman, J. (2003). Designing with web standards. Indianapolis, Ind: New Riders. Read More