The long awaited transition of delta.com to the same layout of nwa.com: 1024×768 is tentatively scheduled for launch in July.
It has not been a small task to say the least. We’re at close to 600 files and growing. The last time I know that this many files were moved into production at the same time was 2005.
Here is a sneak peek at what the home page will look like (click to magnify):
Looking forward to answering any questions you may have.
drew
Senior Developer, delta.com
May 30th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Which part of the respective websites will survive? Will Delta’s flight search system prevail, or will Northwest’s become the default? What about managing reservations, I have never used Delta.com for reservation management, but nwa.com was really good, full featured, and easy to use. Delta.com seems cluttered, compared to nwa.com, too much crammed on the left side in order to make room for the large graphic of the beach.
May 30th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Looking at the “sneak preview” that you provided, it does appear that the new home page will change much from the current delta.com home page. What changes CAN we expect?
May 30th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Edit Post #1″: …”it does NOT appear…”
May 30th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I’m happy to see that the Delta website is finally going to be in 1024×768. I think it will be a significant improvement over the current website. However, in comparing the Northwest website to that of Delta, I almost like the Northwest site better.
I think this is because the way the Delta site is arranged, it looks like you are trying to cram a lot onto the homepage…because thats a big stack of stuff on the left.
Also, in my opinion, people care more about inflight wifi than “More Movies & Miles”. it seems like the priorities are set to marketing and revenues on this site rather than making the customer happy.
Don’t get me wrong…I definitely like the new site, it could just use significant improvement.
May 30th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
As a follow up to what I said earlier, I’ve created what I think would be a better layout for the Delta site at this link: http://s616.photobucket.com/albums/tt244/aerofanatic219/?action=view¤t=Picture6.png
Its really barebones, but you can get the general idea well I think.
-AeroFanatic219
May 30th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
You should copy not just the size of nwa.com, but the layout and features. Delta’s website lags in comparison. Multi-city, award, miles upgrade, and even PerkChoice, non-stop flight options are all available on nwa.com without the need to click thru to a different screen. Delta only offers flex +/- 1 day, NWA offers 3 days. What happened to “best of both”?
May 31st, 2009 at 10:10 am
Personally, I’d be happy if the just took the Northwest site and changed all the signage etc. to Delta.
May 31st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
It’s a good thing that the Delta site is going to a higher res, but really the NWA website design is much better than the Delta one in terms of functionality, design, etc. As others have said above, the Delta site just seems crammed. It’s difficult to navigate compared to the NWA site. Functionality wise, I really would hate to lose NWA’s ability to search +/- 3 days. Even the search process is much easier for NWA’s site, as the flight listings on the Delta search engine is just crammed together – the fonts are so small to read, especially in an age where web design favors larger and more accessible fonts. Here, the NW site is much better – because each flight/intinary (however you spell that word) is organized in a “bubble” and the fonts are much larger than that of Delta’s site. It’s simply much easier to read and the design is appealing to the eye.
Even today, I prefer using NWA.com because of that. It is perhaps one of the best designed websites among all US carriers today, in my opinion. I think that replacing the Delta.com website with the NWA one would really help Delta with the “best of both” goal.
May 31st, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I agree with the other comments. NWA’s website is just easier to look at and use. It’s almost that NWA understood that “look, we know you’re busy and we’ll make it easier for you because you time is really important to us.” I mean, if anything on the Delta site should be bigger, it’s the whole left hand search thing… It’s too crowded and for as many time’s I’ve used the delta site, I keep clicking the wrong thing.
June 1st, 2009 at 5:32 am
Are you gonna change Delta’s website ?
June 1st, 2009 at 10:22 am
I agree. Tne NWA website is easy to use and straightforward. If you want to look at your itenaries, all you need is your FF#. On the delta site, you have to have your eticket # or conf #—those are not numbers you memorize. It’s much better to be able to see all of your flight reservations just be typing in your FF number. I can’t wait to have the two sites integrated as it is driving me crazy to have to go back and forth between them when I have flights that are booked NWA one way and Delta another. But, please, keep it simple and if you don’t just copy the NWA site, then at least, use the best parts of it—and steer away from the current, cluttered Delta.com site. Thanks!
June 1st, 2009 at 10:49 am
Am I the only one hear who likes Delta’s site better? I like how on Delta it displays the flights one leg at a time and how you can easily switch to a schedule search by clicking schedule on top of the flights display page. I also enjoy how you can do business class search without going into advanced search and can easily request refundable fares. My one complaint about both sites is that sometimes the sites decide they don’t like your itinerary and error out making you start your search over. I would also like to see a country menu added to delta.com so say you could do a one way flight from Canada to the US and see the fares in USD instead of CAD, this would be convenient for people who say do one leg by train and the other by air, or are in college in Canada and cannot make all of their reservations to/from school at the same time.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Wow. Lots of feedback about all the things liked on NWA.com. I know there are presently discussions regarding a full redesign of not just the home page but the whole site. All those comments are going to be a huge benefit when it kicks off. Unfortunately though, redesigning the site wasn’t something we could tackle in the project’s time frame. Actually with this update no functionality is being added nor removed. We’re just moving from the current 800×600 targeted design to one that is for 1024×768. In the process we have done a a lot of clean up and code organization to make our lives easier as developers. That should translate into the ability to do things faster.
If you take a look at the screenshot I think you will see that the fonts have increased and there is a little more space around items. It seems to have made the site feel much less cramped as a result. I’ll post more screenshots soon.
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Thanks for your comments everyone! Your feedback has been shared with Josh Weiss, our Managing Director of delta.com & Self-Service (also a frequent blogger here). Can’t wait to see the new improved layout, Drew!
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Please Delta!!! Wouldn’t it be easier to just use the design that already exists on NWA.com?
June 3rd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I agree with those wanting a simple rebranding of the current NWA site to Delta. I’ve been using NWA’s site since 2007 and love it. Aside from one or two rare glitches, it is very user friendly, easy to navigate, and fast. From what I’ve used of the Delta website, it’s just not up to par in comparison. Please don’t ditch NWA’s for Delta’s!!!!!
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Its clear here that people’s preference in website in based a lot upon that which they’ve used the most in the past. Some overall comments:
-Post #11 is incorrect. Login to Delta with your FF# and you can immediately bring up your itineraries with one click. No additional codes needed.
-NWA website brings up too many options that you must sift through to pick the entire itinerary at once. Delta let’s you do out/in-bound separately which is much simpler.
-Wider layout of NWA is easier on the eyes. Please don’t keep the ratio or picture/news to information entry space on the new Delta. Just make the information entry space wider
-One-click to buy option on Delta is faster
-Both websites hang-up with regularity when modifying an existing reservation
Bottom line is that it won’t be that bad either way because both websites are much better than the competitions’!
June 4th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Drew, I hope you guys have not expended much effort. I don’t think very many people really care that “fonts have increased and there is a little more space around items.”
What is BADLY needed is to fix the award calendar. I imagine the majority of users would prefer functionality improvements over a wider image.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
BOSGator: thank you very much. i think some things are just a matter of routine and habit. the aspect of the flight search results i can understand others points of view. i haven’t done it recently, but going through the results on nwa.com and counting outbound options that aren’t repeated (the bundled itineraries do have some of the same flights). Also, we increased the limit of bundled itineraries returned to delta.com earlier this week. the same handling is done (only listing the unique out bound flights then only showing the returns that were paired with that outbound.
Ichansen: I could go into a pretty lengthy discussion on the items that are being put in place for this. there’s actually a lot of ground work that has been done in preparation for all the loyalty integration projects to ensure that those go smoothly with no delays. its is much more than just making the site wider and increasing the font sizes. I just know if i go rambling on about those “under the hood” changes that i’d bore everyone to tears except for those that do wed development for a living.
June 7th, 2009 at 8:24 am
So will current nwa.com users lose the functionality that’s lacking on delta.com, including (but not limited to):
– the consolidated My NWA Info screen (awesome)
– ability to do a single search combining “price and schedule”
– ability to select the number of itineraries shown (up to 50)
– ability to see full award pricing options in one screen across flight options
– ability to enter e-certs and coupons when booking reservations
– ability to see promotions registered and points earned
– ability to see place on first-class waitlist (on mobile too)
If nwa.com users are forced to transition to delta.com, we would expect to retain full functionality.
June 8th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Attn: Drew, Josh, Katie:
Nobody… no other airline including NWA, has a better LOOKING website than Delta. I’ve complimented the Delta webdesign team before via the Feedback button. But for functionality… there are some items on Meseed’s list above that Delta should make every effort to INCLUDE as quickly as possible!
June 11th, 2009 at 10:49 am
I’m glad you are working on the website but in my opinion the design should be at the bottom of the list. The bigger issue is the website will not display all the flights offered even if you select a particular time you wish to depart. I have had to book on Travelocity because delta.com won’t display the flight I want. It seems the problem is only on particular routes. I have had this issue for over a year and I feel it is getting worse. Selecting “Search by Schedule” is a workaround (though it doesn’t always work) but then you have no idea how much the flight is until the last screen. It’s quite frustrating!
June 16th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I sure hope Delta’s new website includes the option to upgrade a flight with miles. The current system Delta uses is most user unfriendly. With NWA upgrades were just a click away. Simple, easy and no phone call to a reservation rep!!!!
July 14th, 2009 at 9:41 am
So it appears that the re-sizing has occurred, but no upgrade to include any increased functionality (meaning we need to use nwa.com). So was this was all about optics, and not P/L impact technology improvements? Please tell me I’m wrong or have missed something.
July 30th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I agree with the others… the NWA has the better website of the two (and is the nicest of all the airlines on which I normally travel) from ticket search and purchase, to user preferences (including booking prefs for our regular travel companions) and frequent flyer maintenance.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Drew, I’m not sure if you’re still monitoring this post or not. But recently I’ve submitted a ton of feedback on your site via the “Contact Us” page. For someone who uses the site sometimes on a daily basis, the design doesn’t seem like it really works well. I’m sure for a traveler coming from another airlines website it may be great. NWA did have a very well designed website where it would appear they put in much thought into how travelers want to use the website – certainly it was nowhere near perfect but for a frequent traveler it was great. I believe that this has probably set many NWA travelers expectations very high. Is there any effort going on to try and streamline the delta website and take advantage of the information that NWA had on how travelers used the nwa.com website? I believe we probably all want the same thing here, Delta included, and that is to have the best experience possible and allow for as much self-service on your website as possible. At times calling in is necessary but anytime I can use self-service option it allows for me to get what I want done in a very timely fashion and can keep travelers who know what they want and how to do it from calling in – a real win win. Any insight into how you’re looking to improve in the near future would be much appreciated.