Weblog for reading internet design.

When I went to L.A. last week, I had a roughly 5 hour plane ride from Atlanta. I’m not really good at flying, but I get more comfortable every time. I flew on Delta for the first time, and the best thing about the trip had to be these individual entertainment/information center.

The unit had Delta Radio, entire albums, live satellite T.V., and movies and games that you could purchase. But for me, the coolset thing was the flight information section that would tell you how much longer the flight is, current altitude, outside air temperature (-50º F), and as pictured above, a live map view of your location.

The unit itself was touch screen, and the UI design was fairly simple, but effective, except that some of the buttons sometimes turn the same color as the page headers, which are the same size as the buttons. But the idea and the functionality of these units are genius. One of the conversations I had with Kevin in L.A. was about travel, and how he has a free vacation for his family from his frequent flyer miles. The moral was to stick with one airline and keep those miles coming. And after encountering these displays, I would probably be inclined to stick with Delta, if I were the kind of person to hand out endorsments.

The freaky part about it, though, was turning past United 93 on A+E. That’s not really the kind of movie you want to watch on a plane.

And for all you huge nerds, check this:

Linux

This entry was posted on Wednesday, 4 April 2007 at 12:19 am and is filed under Interactive Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.