Best of luck tonight to EdenWeb client Aer Arann who have been shortlisted in the Best Travel & Tourism Website category. We redesigned the homepage a few months ago (Case Study coming soon) and made some significant improvements to the design, layout and usability of the homepage and site in general so it’s really rewarding to see that work recognised and up for an Award.
Among my favourite enhancements were three that I felt stongly were missing from the original site and vital for Aer Arann
- RouteMap Quick View so you can quickly see where Aer Arann fly to without leaving the homepage
(this may not be live on the current site as we explore some new banner sizes)
- A ‘Why Fly Aer Arann’ panel to highlight Aer Arann’s unique selling points and their fantastic customer service
- Reduction overall of ‘noise’ and a layout based on a cleaner grid system
- Larger ‘featured routes’ banner to highlight sales, new destinations and similar Aer Arann offers
In total, we explored about 6 concepts, whittled them down to three of the strongest and then settled on our favourite which was then designed and developed further in May 2008.
We also redesigned the Aer Arann booking engine and imporved the user interface with a new simple 3 step online booking process (reduced from 6 steps). More on both of these later but in the meantime, best of luck to Aer Arann and all the shortlisted companies in a very competitive category and industry.
Cashel Palace Hotel already have some of the nicest staff and now they’ve just made my day with their free WIFI. The photo below doesn’t do their Hotel justice but neither does their website. We decided to come back here almost 3 years later based on their great rooms, staff and restaurant.
Anyway – having free net access on the laptop and being able to fix a client’s site this evening while travellng to Cork was such a bonus that I thought I’d mention them and link to their hotel in Tipperary
Thanks guys. WIFI in hotels can be such a rip off that it’s nice to see a hotel provide a little extra for guests.
Happy Halloween. I took a few days off and spent it in Ormside (Cumbria) visiting family, taking photos, and playing my new Nokia E61.
If you’re flying from London Heathrow to Dublin, have a few hours to spare and can’t face the thought of sitting in the aluminium tube they call the departures lounge for Aerlingus, BMI etc then try this.
Go through security and take a sharp right. On front of you is a very long corridor. To your left are the Irish gates. To your right is Duty free. Walk past these straight down the corridor on front of you and keep going to you reach Costa Coffee. There’s a fantastic lounge with large floor to ceiling windows, great coffee. comftrable seats and it’s rarely busy for some reason. Best of all – it runs adjacent to one of the runways. It has incredible views and is the ideal place to fire up the Vodafone 3G card, surf the web and read a copy of PC Zone.
And there’s another tip – always coincide your flights with the new release of your favourite gaming magazine. I will be tomorrow (and next week too!)
