4 ms·

This is probably a result of having a huge team of disempowered developers, each working on delivering a tiny slice of functionality, with a product owner lacki

This is probably a result of having a huge team of disempowered developers, each working on delivering a tiny slice of functionality, with a product owner lacking any kind of organizational clout. Most likely the app team is beholden to a much larger, powerful and entrenched backend division that dictates what APIs they have available and when they can use them.

marcell 10y ago
Most likely this was outsourced to shop that doesn't care at all about anything but checking off "requirements" in a contract.
- thorin_2 10y ago
  That sounds about right.
thorin_2 10y ago
I doubt that it is a problem with the dev team, or a PM's lack of org clout or lack of API access (apparently the app could functionally do what it needed to do, except perhaps the final step, which might have required correcting an expired CC. iTunes has the same flaw when my card expires, requiring me to login from my desktop to fix). In my opinion, this is purely the fault of the PM or PO for lacking any sort of understanding of proper interaction design or making it a point to enlist the help of others who do, with the end result being a horrible UX.
tyingq 10y ago
This is a fairly gnarly space in general. Because of various laws, they have to collect much more data, with more granularity, than a normal e-commerce site. Like birthdates, middle initials, loyalty numbers, etc...for every passenger, not just the buyer. And searching for products is more complex as well. You have to account for cities with multiple airports, one way vs rt, displaying key info like layovers, ancillary charges for bags, many different sorts/filters etc. Oh, and inventory that appears, disappears or changes price (or terms) very rapidly. Just examples, this kind of thing is spread throughout. Throwing the need to do this in at least 4 disparate interfaces (desktop, mobile web, Android, iOS) then amplifies any mistakes. There isn't really any airline that does this completely right. If they get close, keeping up with business and platform changes usually breaks it at some future point. Some things are just hard to do well on tiny screens with shitty keyboards...and X different variations of them.
nunez 10y ago
or no devs at all...

marcell 10y ago

Most likely this was outsourced to shop that doesn't care at all about anything but checking off "requirements" in a contract.

thorin_2 10y ago
That sounds about right.

thorin_2 10y ago

I doubt that it is a problem with the dev team, or a PM's lack of org clout or lack of API access (apparently the app could functionally do what it needed to do, except perhaps the final step, which might have required correcting an expired CC. iTunes has the same flaw when my card expires, requiring me to login from my desktop to fix). In my opinion, this is purely the fault of the PM or PO for lacking any sort of understanding of proper interaction design or making it a point to enlist the help of others who do, with the end result being a horrible UX.

tyingq 10y ago

This is a fairly gnarly space in general. Because of various laws, they have to collect much more data, with more granularity, than a normal e-commerce site. Like birthdates, middle initials, loyalty numbers, etc...for every passenger, not just the buyer. And searching for products is more complex as well. You have to account for cities with multiple airports, one way vs rt, displaying key info like layovers, ancillary charges for bags, many different sorts/filters etc. Oh, and inventory that appears, disappears or changes price (or terms) very rapidly. Just examples, this kind of thing is spread throughout. Throwing the need to do this in at least 4 disparate interfaces (desktop, mobile web, Android, iOS) then amplifies any mistakes. There isn't really any airline that does this completely right. If they get close, keeping up with business and platform changes usually breaks it at some future point. Some things are just hard to do well on tiny screens with shitty keyboards...and X different variations of them.

nunez 10y ago

or no devs at all...