A Leader in On-Line Travel Services Essay Example for Free

A Leader in On-Line Travel Services Essay The travel industry is billion dollar a year business. Year round people from all walks fill the roads and departing plane seats in search of travel success. There is no doubt that the travel industry will continue to be in demand, however, while vacationers, business travelers and everyone in between anticipate spending a good chunk of change to get from point a to point b, no person wants to part with their hard earned money. Thankfully, some genius out there understood this. Along with the evolution of the technological advances came a miraculous source for locating the best deals in travel, from flights to hotels to car rental. Based on the number of travel websites available, no longer do discounted travel options belong solely to commissioned travel agents. Today, everyone from housewives to grandpas to beer-guzzling football fanatics have the capability of obtaining their own travel deals. Parented by Expedia, Inc and based in Washington State, Expedia. com revolutionized the way people travel the world, and as time continues, its services only get better. With a bit of research, a pen and some paper, soon-to-be travelers are able to decide what airline or hotel best suits their needs (and their wallets) all with just a few clicks of the mouse. While competitors such as Travelocity and Priceline offer much of the same services, Expedia. com continues to be a leader in the travel industry (PR Newswire, p. 1). Thousands of hotels, airlines and other travel accommodators have joined in to vie for the traveler’s business, and the wooing has resulted in deep discounts and sometimes little extras, such as free hotel nights. Expedia. om’s early days were a bit primitive, but as the demand for travel options increased, the business flourished. Expedia. com has become a household name among travelers and will continue to be a source for deal seekers around the world. Expedia. com’s big break came in 1996 when Richard Barton, who, at the time, was responsible for creating CD-ROMS for Microsoft, presented the idea of offering travel options on-line (NetIndustries, p. 1). Microsoft Network1 reluctantly began assisting in web exposure in order to generate business for the experimental company (NetIndustries, p. ). While discounted airline tickets were the only product Expedia was offering at the time, the investment Microsoft placed in technological innovations for the company greatly expanded the number of people coming across Expedia. com’s website. A few short years would prove that Expedia. com was not just some fly-by-night ‘dot-com’. In 1999, Microsoft Network spun off a portion of their interest in Expedia for public availability; a move that increased Expedia. com’s worth within hours (NetIndustries, p. 1). With success under their belt, Microsoft opted to sell its entire interest in Expedia. com to USA Networks, Inc. 2. Led by CEO Erik Blachford, Expedia. com is wholly owned by InterActiveCorp (PBM, p. 1). Teaming up with Classic Custom Vacations, Expedia Corporate Travel and Travelscape. com, Inc. , Expedia. com found itself in the perfect position to expand the types of travel services offered, and could continue fulfilling their mission of utilizing electronic sourcing in order to provide the best travel options to its users (About Expedia. com, p. 1). Services available through Expedia. com include discounted flights, hotel accommodations, auto rental, cruises and even vacation packages, all for domestic and international destinations. Additionally, the company offers guidance to travelers who are unsure of the type of travel they are seeking. By clicking the ‘activities’ tab on the website, destination seekers are able to view events taking place all over the world (Expedia. com, p7). Additional services include printable maps, an easy 1. Microsoft Network, a major software developer, assisted Expedia. om by providing technological resources, to include premium web exposure, which played a major role in Expedia. com’s growth. 2. USA Networks, a media based operator, changed its name to USA Interactive upon completing its purchase of Expedia. com. USA Interactive also owns Expedia. com competitor Hotels. com (SJP, 2002). to maneuver website and 24/7 customer service. Along with success, Expedia. com endured its share of struggles. In early operations, Expedia faced several lawsuits, including one from competitor Priceline. om for infringing on a patented â€Å"name your price† service. Other competitors, such as Travelocity. com were heating things up by adding new features and services to their websites. Expedia. com’s defense was to play-up the features and services they already used by launching a major marketing campaign using tags like â⠂¬Å"Don’t just travel. Travel right,† and â€Å"Where do you want to go today? † (NetIndustries, p. 1). While the marketing campaign was a success, profit success was short-lived when some airlines stopped paying commissions to on-line travel agents, including Expedia. om. While competitors such as Priceline. com tagged on hefty $10. 00 surcharges to customers using airlines who didn’t pay commissions, Expedia was able to negotiate with several airlines in order to avoid charging additional fees to customers, while continuing to offer those airlines’ services without feeling too much of a punch (NetIndustries, . 1). Overcoming these challenges, Expedia continues its success by utilizing a product line pricing strategy, which entails offering a variety of products at ranged pricing, or bundling packages and charging accordingly. A mere 11 years old, Expedia. com has become established nationally as well as internationally. Today, Expedia. com’s success continues. It employs 1,758 people, and averages sales at an estimated $590 million (NetIndustries, p. 1). The future includes focusing on the business traveler, whose needs are being met by providing the widest range of products possible, and offering little comforts such as the Expedia. com Cafe3. Cornering the market with the best deals, Expedia. com will continue to lead the on-line travel industry without missing a beat.

Subversive Power of the Theater Revealed in Hamlet an Othello :: The Tragedy of Hamlet Essays

Subversive Power of the Theater Revealed in Hamlet and Othello      Ã‚   Theatrical performance is vital not only to the presentation of Hamlet and Othello, but it is vital to each of the play's respective stories. Several key characters control, manipulate, or script a theatrical performance of their own. Through subtle suggestion and explicit or implicit storytelling, Shakespeare's use of theatrical performance within his own plays underscores the subversive power of the theater. It is no secret that Shakespeare embeds within many of his plays subtle suggestions which were subversive to the thoughts and attitudes at the time. Through the construction of the play within a play, Hamlet subverts the notion of kingship. In the play, without even speaking himself, Hamlet constructs a particular version of reality so chilling that Claudius leaves the theater. While this is obviously due to the startling similarity that Claudius sees between the play and his own life, the subtle idea implied is the idea that royalty can be simplified to nothing more than acting. If the roles of the king and queen can be played so well that Claudius leaves the room, seeing the striking similarity between the play and his life, then there is no reason why kingship itself cannot be acted. This subversively delegitimizes the power of the throne. Moreover, it is only in the scenes related to the mousetrap that Hamlet shows signs of leadership. He says to the players, "Follow him, friends . We'll hear a play tomorrow . . . You could for a need / study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines / which I would set down and insert in't, could you / not?" (Shakespeare II.2:546-553). He is directing the action, asking the ability of the players and telling them exactly what they should do. The fact that Hamlet, the man who would be king, is a leader only in a performance subverts the idea of leadership being something firmly ingrained within the soul of a human being. Instead, it is replaced with the notion that kingship is not something that can be passed down from generation to generation, but something that can be acted, as if it could be turned on and off at will. The nobles and leaders of a country, then, are not inherently born with power because of their familial origin, but they have the same basis of human experience as the common man, an idea which would've been utterly rejected in Shakespeare's time.

Human Computer Interaction Individual Report Essay

We as a group we have been set tasks to evaluate an existing system and capture the required improvements that should be made to the system through comprehensive research using the required methods to improve usability of the system. As a group we are to understand the user and capture its needs through numerous of method for example, questionnaire. I within my group decided to evaluate the system (www.pogo.com) as it was thought to inspect the system thoroughly from which some major errors were confronted. To check if these were to reflect the user of the system and that it was effecting the lack of consistent and comprehensive movement from within the site i considered to evaluate the system using ‘Shneiderman’s 8 Golden Rules’ . The evaluation method constructed errors which were found are to be tested with the users and get feedback via the talk aloud and the questionnaire from which I with my group will be able to test the system and capture the user requirements Content Page Paragraph Name Page Number Summary 1 Methods chosen, why 3 Problems Encountered 3 Feedback from users 4 Achievements from the assessment 4 Conclusion/ Recommendations 5 Bibliography/ references 6 Books 6 Web sites 6 Methods chosen, why The interface that chose to evaluate and redesign, was www.pogo.com as this website was not that appealing to me and I think it needs improvements as it is aimed at a family audience. To evaluate the system www.pogo.com it was required to test the system and check if the system had any major error or were they minor problems, in order for me to do this I decided to evaluate the system using the 8 golden rules of Shneiderman’s. The method was used to evaluate the system as this enabled me to test the colour, resolution, text, layout etc†¦ and I thought this method was very useful to appoint out the usability problem that the system was carry to the users. To carry out the evaluation I was first to understand the method and then continue to explore this with the system (www.pogo.com) . The methods used for capturing user requirements were Observation, Questionnaire and talk aloud. These methods were chosen because they were Easy to explore with the system, Cost Effective and Time Effective. Problems Encountered The major problems encountered during the task tests were to find the appropriate user to tackle these tasks. As the methods used were demanding a wide range of user that fitted in the categories of the novice, intermediate and expert users, it was difficult to address the needs of certain user as all categories were involved and from each users view was taken into consideration. There were novice, intermediate and expert that took the task which was a real heap for me as this would help me redesign the interface to fulfil the usability needs. Feedback from users From asking the users to complete the tasks more knowledge was gained for what users expected within a website, from this I was able to point out the like and dislike. From this I also acknowledge that the users prefer their website to be attractive so it is enjoyable to use and users also like to take minimum amount of steps to complete a particular task. The results which I obtained were very useful for redesigning the website. I found out what different usability needs were and what features users wanted to be remained on the website, and any others which they thought required changing. From this information I chose to do a paper based prototype for my system because it was simple, cheap and provided quick feedback from the user. Achievements from the assessment Having completed the assessment I feel that I would be able to explain the usability of any website/interface and from this I am able to identify usability problems such as psychological problems of the system, as well as being able to evaluate any system in depth. From this assessment I have also knowledge how I would explain various methods of capturing user requirements, stating the advantages and disadvantages of the method. Conclusion/ Recommendations If I was to do the assessment again, I would use Shneiderman’s Eight Golden Rules to identify the usability of the system, as I found them very useful both to understand and apply towards the website. I would also use the ‘Ten Heuristics’ to evaluate the website and I would have a great image of usability in evaluating the system. If given a chance in the future to redesign the system I would choose to do a low fidelity prototype but as well as this I would prefer to redesign the website in a high fidelity prototype provided that I am given extra time than provided in my first attempt. The reason for this would be that the users would see the prototype in a low fidelity and will be given a chance then to test the system via a high fidelity prototype. As I only had five users to complete the set task, I was unable to get different views from users to make changes to the redesign. In the future I would ask more users (maybe 10 different users) to complete at least three different tasks. By doing this, the users would experience more interaction with the system www.pogo.com and would comment more on the results they would achieve from the task, and also whether they were able to complete the task accurately, in a minimum amount of time. Bibliography/ references Books User and task analysis for interface design By: JoAnn T. Hackos Janice C. Redish Human computer interaction 3rd addition By: Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, and Russell Beale Effective methodology for the study of HCI By: J. Kirakowski and M. Corbett Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd edition, By: Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory Abowd, Russel Beale Web sites http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/ Lecture 3/ Usability/Evaluation Methods/Talk Aloud/Page 15 http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/Class/est571go/ta.html http://hcibib.org/tcuid/ End Page CHI2310 Human Computer Shelley Wolfson

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