for every good ui there exists ten fold as many bad ui websites filled with ads, spyware and popups, I’m okay not visiting those sites myself. Of course you have to use local models if you wish to not get surveiled and analyzed by cloud ai providers.
But the example on the left isn’t good either. It’s an example of Google taking info from elsewhere and regurgitating it to you, taking you away from the source. In a way no different than summarizing a site so you never wind up going to the site. And it’s not always right either.
Lets also not forget that these booking UIs replaced a human operator and offloaded the work and time on you, the consumer to find yourself correct tickets. Each priced algorithmically as much as they can squeeze.
If the flight companies didn’t want that to happen, they could have just been upfront with their prices and not filled their checkout process with a million dark patterns meant to steal your money. But they couldn’t help themselves, so here we are.
so you never wind up going to the site
Doesn’t the final booking have to be made on the actual source site? That’s always been the case when I used it (agreed that it’s not always right, sometimes the final price/availability is different but hasn’t happened often to me)
That assumes people can read a form.
As a person building web forms: This shit is so damn hard to do well. I don’t want no AI instead, but damn. I’m a fucking coder. UX is important, but I’m far from an expert on it. And most companies are usually FAR to stingy to hire actual UX experts. So it’s usually, me an antisocial, slightly autistic coder who loves the work of writing but hates the work of designing that stuff to design your user-experience.
No wonder companies want to switch to AI, that way they can not only skip the UX-expert but also keep the coders where we are most productive: coding.
I have so much respect for designers and experts in user experience, please, just hire one and let us work together, I promise we’ll come up with something great.
This 100%. UX/UI designers make tons of money for a good reason. They have to be experts in how computers approach a problem and how (non techie) humans approach a problem and basically translate between the two. The number of people with both of those skillsets is exceptionally small.
That’s so true. Some people I’ve programmed with have said “the user is using the software wrong” and claim there’s no bug but I describe those as UX bugs.
I would really like to have a UX person come to me and the colleagues once a month to highlight issues so I can upskill.
The problem is time, I find. I can make good UX but I was only given the necessary time literally ONCE in the last 6 months…
I’m so tired… I want to work in peace and quiet for once in my life.
“Is it working?”
“Yes, the logic is all there and it works as intended but-”
“Then ship it.”
“But the user experience is not yet-”
“Ship it!”We all know the pain brother and in the end they will come to you and tell you that it’s not usable as is… For me the trick was convincing my boss that UI/UX is as important a part of the product as the logic. But my boss is generally the good kind, the company is just teeny tiny and so I have to do shit that I’m not as good at as my real job.
Yea, EXACTLY my experience. “Get it working ASAP and move on to the next thing” then I’m told I’m an idiot when the feature doesn’t work how they imagined it in a dream.
The things I would revolutionise in my company if we could communicate our thoughts to someone that doesn’t understand why nothing is ever simple in programming…
So much this.
Also, an org where testing is (correctly) considered a highly skilled job.
Also, an org where testing is (correctly) considered a highly skilled job.
Yes, please!
Well there’s still a UX to chatbots and flow. User experience doesn’t go away because there’s no UI elements.
Yeah, you have to stop the user from enjoying their site and come up with the most annoying modal that takes all their attention and says, “Hi! I’m Sammy! Instead of finding out what services we offer by just reading the fucking site, just ask me and I’ll give vague answers you’re not sure you can even trust!”
You’re right, user experience is hard to design and nail down. I’ve only dabbled in that stuff and it can be difficult.
“You’re absolutely right to push back, I didn’t book the flight you asked me to, and I showed you a fake boarding pass. Here’s why…”
I always think it’s funny how the example tech companies ALWAYS use when describing how their products make your life easier is “booking a flight”. The only folks for whom this makes it easier are folks for who the price does not matter.
Well if it automatically searches for the best deal, wouldn’t that make life easier? Though there are already websites for that too.
What’s the best deal? A direct flight redeye? Or a daytime ticket with two layovers for $20 less? A $100 cheaper flight that gets in the night before to a city where hotels average $200?
And if you’re thinking the LLM could just produce some options that might work before letting the user decide, well, that is what Google Flights already does.
Way worse UI
More like no UI, just hopes and dreams that it does what you want.
Left: select any flight, anywhere, any minute you want, with detailed errors explaining what you can and can’t do
Right: hopes and prayers that you end up with a ticket to the right place
And you already know they will slowly make all UI worse and worse to the point where you are basically forced to use AI for everything
You know what’s even better?
Talking to someone at the airport on the phone. No dynamic pricing, having someone to reference mistakes, not having to make login accounts and passwords.
This garbage will come back with negative returns. Just like having self checkouts. I wasn’t trained to work on a register so I can’t tell if those organic vegetables are or aren’t. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s no difference unless it the prepackaged ones.
People will call you old, and say you are refusing to learn new stuff.
Sometimes the new stuff is more efficient in some cases, and in some cases it is not. So it’s nice to have the option. But instead companies limit the more traditional option, because it costs them more. Even though it’s the better option and better customer experience in some cases.
Like no one answering phones anymore is some serious bullshit. Sometimes that’s the quickest way to solve a problem that doesn’t fit into their generic set of problem use cases their automated systems are designed for and limited to.
That’s well put.
It’s like these systems are so poorly implemented that they’re frustrating. And the main issue is you take so much longer to do anything with these stupid AI bots that just saying ADA compliance until you get someone is faster.
I will say that the new wave of chatbots are a mistake. It adds to people not answering phones, it’s like blah blah blah (American accent) to hold on while I transfer you to an associate. And then you get “John” with a think Indian accent. It would be less irritating if they just used their actual name.
But the fun part for me is, my name has a french spelling variation so it’s easy to weed out spammers.
The one on the right appeals more to dumb people who hate complexity
These people think they’re artificially boosting their brain power by offloading their decision making the AI, but they’re literally just letting a program roll dice to make close to average decisions based on 5 minutes of context.
This implies websites couldn’t/didn’t lie to you before AI, which I think is hilarious.
Yes, I run into it very regularly. I’m constantly trying to source materials locally, but every shopping website lies through their teeth about availability. Google is the worst though. They intentionally put paid spots for non-local suppliers in the local results because otherwise it would just be a blank page (which I would greatly prefer…).
The difference there being that the computers aren’t lying, the humans operating them are.
A combination could actually be pretty handy. Describe what you want to book and it gets automatically filled out in a form which you can check for mistakes. Less manual filling out and still full control.
But maybe for more complex things than booking a flight.
What if there was a straightforward api for my local agent to get the info I want out of your website so I can see what I want without a million upsell ads, and then a well designed web form for me to place my order?
At that point you might as well just do it yourself tbh
You try and use Trainline.com to book an east to west trip requiring 3 changes with at least 15 mins to make each change and maximum resilience to cancellation and delays.
A well designed web form isnt ubiquitous. And many people disparage using Google/major search tools.
