New virgin-atlantic.com website release (update 29/02/12)

Hi v-flyers,

I’d like to update you on some exciting work we’ve been working on at Virgin Atlantic for the last year. We are well underway with a root & branch redesign of our website and have today uploaded the first release of the new site. We’re delighted to be able to share this with you now and are eager to hear your opinions.

The Virgin Atlantic website is complex covering flight booking, check in, special offers and Flying Club amongst many other areas of functionality. Rather than trying to tackle all of this in one go we’ll be progressing though the site function by function, coming up with something new, improved and often very innovative with each new release. The highlights from our first release are:

• First sight of our stunning new design, reflecting the latest enhancements to our brand and livery.
• Baggage section with clearer information.
• Rate the page – our customers’ opportunity to give us direct feedback about the information on the website.
• Surfacing FAQs so that all of the deeper, very specific questions our customers have about baggage are surfaced on the website, rather than in a tiny link at the foot of each page.
• New top level navigation putting the majority of the website just one click away from any page.
• Entirely new server architecture behind the scenes, powering both the current and new website pages.

We’re starting the release of the new site with the baggage section because it is among the most important sections of information for our passengers – ‘Baggage’ and ‘Baggage allowances’ are always near the top of search terms used on the site. Rolling out the rest of the Travel Information section next is a natural progression from Baggage – and then we’ll start getting into the more functional areas of flight status and searching for flights.

We are following a user centred design process carrying out user testing at each step of the development road map. Now, we’re involving you, as some of our most committed customers, to help us evolve the site over time. The link to the new pages is below, please visit and let us know what you think, using the ‘rate our page’ button, bottom-right of the new site.

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en/tr ... ggage.html

We look forward to hearing your thoughts, comments and questions. I will feed back as much as I can on the future direction our site is taking and keep you updated with each new release.

Thanks and Regards,

Fergus, Kyle, Greg & Howard.
Virgin Atlantic eBusiness and Social Relations teams.

It's much better, the layout and design is far more modern and easy to read.

I think the main focus of a airline website is reliability and ease of access. Are you working to address the editorial mistakes and mis-information that is common place on the current website? This is especially noticeable around the sale fare PR.

It is better, agreed.

Reliability is absolutely key - let's try and avoid blank emails sent out and loosing of seat request data going forward - that would be great.

I look forward to the improved flight booking engine very much indeed - are you able to give a clue as to whether this may give enriched functionality regarding reward bookings - miles for upgrades, Amex PE upgrade vouchers etc?

First up, great and delighted to see this. The poor quality of the current site, it's frequent outages, stupid mistakes etc. are a real drag on VS's brand.

I like the design, it's modern, and clean, and very visual - if that is going to be augmented by greatly improved navigation and ease of click to the right page, and reliability, then it will be very good indeed.

I see this is live, interested to see you are rolling it out page by page which is bound to create confusion - e.g. no consistent navigation / inconsistent UI / features may not be available. Be interested to know why you took this decision, it seems poor to do it this way and exacerbates the current problem of moving through the site?

It does look very good though I am finding the grey text a little hard to read as it's not dark enough.

Can I suggest you have a section on 'getting ready for security'?

I know you list what you can't carry on board but this is not the same as getting ready for security. So guidance on laptops/kindles etc. Shoes on or off etc etc.

The UK Food rerstrictions is also helpful so how about including similar for what you can and can't take into other countries. THe US and Australia are especially restricted.

Also you need to get into the habit of dating the pages too.

Also, on the Rate Page frame...

It says
(On a scale of 1-5 where 1 = Strongly disagree and 5 = Strong agree)

You might want to correct "strong agree" to "strongly agree" - I assume that was the intention?

Also, the 1-5 grid for various attributes does not meet accessibility guidelines - it won't work work screen reader software.

to echo what has been said above a great improvement.

a how to get ready for security section is a good suggestion.
another idea would be an 'on arrival what happens next' section covering immigration and customs etc.
this could also be shown on the IFE system destination specific as i know BA do on flights in to T5 at LHR and Delta do/did on landing in Atlanta following trans Atlantic flights

the more pax know what to do and what paperwork to have ready the quicker they and everyone behind will clear inbound checks.

The new page looks great! y)

Can I suggest you have a section on 'getting ready for security'?

Could continue that theme with 'getting ready for cherry tomatoes in gravy' or 'getting ready for dodgy IFE' ):

And what you can do with all or part of your amenity kit if you don't want it:D

[Neil]

Let's try and keep the thread on topic please. It is a great opportunity for us to give constructive feedback direct to VS over the website, which is something we have all agreed needed serious work.

I think the new site looks excellent, a really great improvement on the old one. The page works well on the iPad and I think it's important you try and remember that for all pages, as certain tasks on the current site can be quite a laborious process.

I think the real test will come when we see what you have done with the main parts of the site flying club and the booking engine, and how much better you have made those, get them right and you've done excellent.

Thanks,
Neil

Could continue that theme with 'getting ready for cherry tomatoes in gravy' ):

Now I like that, with tips on indigestion relief, symptoms, pharmaceuticals to use if ingested, through to links to psychoanalytical help and support groups. Perhaps even a forum for people to share how they recovered from the shock and stress!

Good idea, and all in delightful VS jolly marketing speak, like:

"Look at our stunningly designed pages, reflecting the latest enhancements to our brand and livery, provided especially for sufferers of gravy / tomato combinations!"

liking the new theme and design. Look forward to seeing more

Thanks Kyle, the site looks fantastic!!

Loads quickly and as Neil has said it views well both on laptop on iPad. It certainly brings virgin into 2011 and beyond. The pages flow well and from a usability point of view gets high marks!

My greatest frustration as mentioned above (but worth repeating for feedback purposes) is that the changes to the existing site often appear to be last minute rush jobs with mistakes a link issues.

Glad to hear of the new server too as it annoys me how long it currently takes to generate a price.

I'd just like to also add that I think you an th rest of the social team do a great job - I genuinely believe customers consider Facebook contactibility as vital when choosing a company! Thnk you

(also you chose the best place for honest feedback on here!!)

Huge improvement. Well done! y)

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the site. ^)

[Darren Wheeler]

Looks good and there is an attempt to bring a little fun and humour into it - "Large Package? What are you smiling at?

One little bug and I've moaned to the BBC about the same thing, the links to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or any external site, please can they be coded to open in a new window/tab rather than in the same one. Seems a bit of an odd thing to do, send visitors away.

Hopefully the full booking engine will be updated too so it's a cleaner and removed the "No flights" When it should say "No seats"

Looks good and there is an attempt to bring a little fun and humour into it - "Large Package? What are you smiling at?

Good spot - it's that very humour, quirkiness, joy of flying, whatever you want to call it, that has kept me loyal to VS for a very long time and attracted me as a customer in the first place.

More please...

Many thanks for sharing with us and for allowing the v-flyer family an opportunity to provide feedback.

It certainly looks fresher with crisp lines - a huge improvement. y)

Jon

Frequently don't have the background image load up (until you refresh the page) for some reason (Safari 5.1 on Mac OS 10.7)

Looks really fresh though, very welcome change!

Frequently don't have the background image load up (until you refresh the page) for some reason (Safari 5.1 on Mac OS 10.7)

Screen Shot 2011-07-27 at 21.08.45.jpg

Looks really fresh though, very welcome change!

I have had the same issue. I am also using Safari 5.1

Very nice update the the website though, very easy to navigate and looks very stylish.

[mitchja]

Just to confirm the same Safari 5.1 (Windows version) issue here as well.

Saying that though many websites struggle with Safari for some reason (especially the Windows version)

Other than that, it looks fantastic y)

I think the new design is great; the pages are so much more stylish and they make much better use of images. The difference is astonishing when you navigate back to one of the 'older' pages.

It seems odd to me, though, to move to the new site section by section. But I am sure you have your reasons.

[mitchja]

Safari 5.1 on a Mac (running Lion 10.7) also doesn't load the background images every time either.

Firstly, the site looks fantastic, very much on the right track. I too am having the blank background issue sometimes, using Chrome on Windows Vista. The Emirates website is one of the better airline sites out there, it seems this design is not too far off so I would perhaps recommend using that site for some guidance as you progress to fully develop this one.

Apart from that I have nothing much to add, to me though the new site will be judged mainly on the booking engine, I'm really hoping for more versatility and more options with what passengers can do regarding upgrades, reward bookings etc...


Keep it up !

Huge improvement - hoping the rest of the site follows fairly swiftly, though expect it'll take some time!