Cynthia Fowler writes:

>Maybe they need to talk to Southwest Airlines. I have easily booked and
>paid for tickets on their site within 15-20 minutes.

Hmm... I just booked my roundtrip for tomorrow, and it took -- no kidding
-- 65 seconds, including launching the browser. I could write a Perl
script to do the whole thing with one click, but at 55 seconds to do it
by hand, I couldn't possibly recoup the investment necessary to write the
script!

But the fact that I *could* write a script is important, because it means
that Southwest is very careful about changing the internals of their web
site. They keep their pages so simple that even something as dumb as a
computer can use them. In the future, I suppose, XML will help decouple
the UI from the actual data exchange but until then, companies with web
designs like Southwest's will get my business a lot more often than
companies with web sites like American's.

-- Bruce

PS. Of course, pricing that comes out of a book, not off a roulette
wheel, helps insure my loyalty, too.

- B

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