Redesign American Airlines Website Critique

literacyliteracy
D E S I G ND E S I G N
Wednesday, September 11, 13

Dear AmericanAirlines
I redesigned your
website and I'd like to
get your opinion....
Dustin Curtis
http://dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html
(A design villain)

Fire your entire
design team...
[who] is obviously
incapable of
building a good
experience. Get
outside help.
Dustin Curtis
http://dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html

Dear Dustin Curtis,
I saw your blog post titled “Dear
American Airlines,” and I thought I’d
drop a line. Sorry for the length of
this email, but let me sum up the gist
of what I’ve written below: You’re
right. You’re so very right. And yet…
Mr. X (via Dustin Curtis)
http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html

2 hours

365 days365 days

Why would Dustin publish this?

Calling, sending a text, writing a letter.
Write a Yelp review, etc.
Publish a tweet, a blog post, etc.
Take out a newspaper, billboard ad, etc.
...Consulting.

LiteracyLiteracy

Literacy,inanymedium,means
notjustknowinghowtoread
thatmedium,butalsohowto
createinit,andtounderstand
thedifferencebetweengoodand
baduses.
Clay Shirkey
Foreword to Mediactive by Dan Gillmor
“

Qualitative
QUANTITATIVE QUANTITATIVE QUANTITATIVE

Designliteracy requiresthatwe...
๏Designeffectivelywithexistingmedia.
๏Understandthepsychologyofpeople.
๏Understandour“limitations.”
๏Seethepotentialinnewmedia.
๏Prudentlyleveragethese,overtime,toteach.

discover define develop deliver
1 2 3 4

WRITING
Pieces together thoughts
Expands our understanding
READING

consensus
Design for commerce
Adversarial design
Dissensus

CONSENSUSCONSENSUS

eCommerce
A/B testing conversions

Civic Literacy
Field Guides to Ensuring Voter Intent

Health Literacy
Healthfinder.gov, Telling Kids About Cancer

dissensusdissensus

Bi er Pill

ONE
ACETAMINOPHEN
TABLET
COSTS 1.5¢.
YOUR HOSPITAL
MARKS IT UP
10,000%

The culture we created as a
consequence, though, was – and
still is in some ways – profoundly
unattractive. What was supposed
to be fairness can become
callousness or, at the very least,
can feel that way when read from
the other side.
Nick Harkaway
The Blind Giant
“

Million Dollar Blocks

At any level of abstraction,
design can either be a
gesture of consent or
dissent. A statement of fact
or a rhetorical question.

Designingfor
Literacy
Designingfor
Literacy

Accessibility

1. Obtain literacy
2. ???
3. Profit

<img alt=”description” />
no yes

experts developers
Designer

MAGIC
experts developers

experts wanted tests
A government that ensured
accessibility compliance.

magic: design for consensus
Design to facilitate accessibility
compliance.
What’s the relative contrast of color pairings on your webpage?
What’s relative contrast?
What are color pairings?
What’s a webpage?

devs wanted understanding
A government that ensured
accessibility literacy.

adversarial design
Help culture see the ways in
which its system wasn’t working.
Testing is not teaching.

If you are coming from outside the usual pool of
people who work in Field X, you’re going to hit
[cultural] barriers. Some of those barriers need
to be rattled and eventually demolished, but
some are just about a lack of shared context.
Open secrets are the hardest ones to crack when
you’re coming in from outside, because no one
will take you aside and whisper them in your
ear. They’re the air everyone else is breathing.
Erin Kissane
Wednesday, 12 June 2013 – The Pastry Box

Journalismprinciples
๏Thoroughness.Learntospeakthelanguage.
๏Accuracy.Avoiderrors;theyunderminetrust.
๏Fairness.Talktousersandstakeholders.
๏Independence.Constructyourownnarrative.
๏Transparency.Askpeopletocorroborate.
Adapted from Dan Gillmor’s principles of trustworthy media creation in “Mediactive”

Apleaforcontentstrategy
๏Problem
๏Vision
๏High-levelstrategy
๏Contentroadmap
๏Caveats&Openquestions

Whatthis
meansforus
Whatthis
meansforus

fashion
commerce
infrastructure
governance
culture
nature

fashion
commerce
infrastructure
governance
culture
nature
Visual design
Interaction design
Information architecture
Content strategy
User-centered

JOURNALISM
TEACHING
1 2

Whatthis
meansforusers
Whatthis
meansforusers

We’reinanindustrythatinitially
focusedonhavingusersnotthink
whenthere’satonofmeritin
consideringwhatwewantusers
tothinkabout.

The “literacy” bar
Book awesome
2,000 BOOKS
BLUE SKY
User awesome
NOISY & BLOODY
BLUE SKY
Adapted from Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2012. Building the Minimum Badass User.

Don’t focus on the thing, focus on the
user. Enable literacy through design.

@andrewmaier
andrew@uxbooth.com
http://bit.ly/10Mdelj
Nerds rejoice!
There’s a bibliography available!

Redesign American Airlines Website Critique

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Redesign American Airlines Website Critique

Similar to Redesign American Airlines Website Critique (18)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Redesign American Airlines Website Critique