A couple years back, I helped Orbitz.com redesign their shopping process. During that time, if you wanted to book travel the major players were Expedia and Travelocity, with Orbitz aiming to be the more usable, better-looking alternative.
Today, those three players are equally mature and equally less than compelling. They don’t capture all airlines and have yet to offer the recreational traveler’s dream: give me the cheapest flight to Brussels, anytime, any day, in the next 1, 3, and 6 months.
Enter Kayak.com. Think of it as Froogle for travel. Just the bare-minimum needed to start a travel search. If you want something a little sexier, check out Pinpoint Travel. Pinpoint uses Kayak’s engine and leverages the new AJAX web application model making a very interesting and helpful interface – like Google Suggests. Also, by asking me questions about my personal preferences, Pinpoint does an excellent job of keeping me engaged while it’s searching.
On the downside, AJAX relies heavily on Javascript so Pinpoint isn’t accessible and for some odd reason neither is Kayak.
I really like Ajax. In terms of usability and overall user experience, it’s a great way to go. That said, these are all just basic forms at the core…querying a database. Would it really be that hard for them to whip up a non-javascript alternative for those that require it?