That was educational
Dec. 12th, 2007 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarkerI have just spent about 2 hours making a flight reservation. Orbitz won't accept credit cards from people in Japan. One of the others offered me reasonable flights, but when I selected one, it transferred me to Orbitz to finish the transaction? Travelocity insisted on giving me long routes - why don't I want to fly through Detroit and Atlanta on the way to Albuquerque? Although the two day return flight looked special. Cheaptickets turns out to be a skin over Orbitz, with the same limitations on credit cards. And so forth . . .
Finally found what I wanted on the United website. Except they require US residency. But in their FAQ, they suggest trying the worldwide sites, and sure enough, they have one in Japan - which required me to fill in ALL the information again, on exactly the same forms, but finally did take my information and . . . said they were having technical difficulties, please try again later. Being desperate, I backed up one page and re-submitted. And for whatever reason, this time it went through!
If I wasn't partly obsessive, I never would have done all that. Wow, what happens to people who don't quite trust computers?
I sure am glad I'm techie, otherwise I might find it irritating that such a simple, basic thing as trying to make a routine reservation can be this complicated!
It must be time for me to write an article or prepare a class on human interface design for the software engineers. Maybe I can have them try making a reservation on their own system? I am so glad that I have never designed reservations software, I think I might have to shoot myself.
Finally found what I wanted on the United website. Except they require US residency. But in their FAQ, they suggest trying the worldwide sites, and sure enough, they have one in Japan - which required me to fill in ALL the information again, on exactly the same forms, but finally did take my information and . . . said they were having technical difficulties, please try again later. Being desperate, I backed up one page and re-submitted. And for whatever reason, this time it went through!
If I wasn't partly obsessive, I never would have done all that. Wow, what happens to people who don't quite trust computers?
I sure am glad I'm techie, otherwise I might find it irritating that such a simple, basic thing as trying to make a routine reservation can be this complicated!
It must be time for me to write an article or prepare a class on human interface design for the software engineers. Maybe I can have them try making a reservation on their own system? I am so glad that I have never designed reservations software, I think I might have to shoot myself.
