Show HN: Travel tips for airports | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Travel tips for airports

airportcat.com

39 pointsreturn018 comments

A bit of feedback:

- There's no https (not even on the signup page), which isn't really ideal in general and especially not if it's a site which is probably being used through open airport wifis or in coffee shops waiting for the next flight.

- The button on the signup page (http://airportcat.com/signup) isn't consistent with the other buttons

- Personally I think the yellow font on the pictures makes it all look a bit "cheap" and it's hard to read.

- The check in feature is a good idea but I'm not sure if it'll get used a lot, there are already Foursquare and Facebook and you can only use so many check in apps at once. Maybe integrate these other services somehow? Not sure if that's possible with their API.

- The localisation isn't choosing the closest airport for me, it should be MUC but it's using FRA.

Apart from that I like it and I'll probably add some tips myself.

Thanks for the feedback! I really did not expect so many upvotes. We are really only starting out so every suggestion counts.

I like this; I think your search algorithm for airports could use a little improvement. It looks like you may be prioritizing airport name matches over code matches: "SFO" puts San Francisco International Airport at the bottom.

Airport code should definitely take a higher priority. It would also be nice if you could use airport size as a sorter in your algorithm as well. For example, if I type in "Cleveland", I'm most likely looking for our main airpot, Hopkins International, but that's the last option that comes up. The other options are small, regional airports that only run private and charter.

I like the idea of airport size a lot. You could even generate that by hand with a list of the top 100 airports or something.

Top airports:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_airports_by_pas...

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/may/04/world-t...

Thanks for the tip. I updated the sorting to be more reasonable

I really like this idea, a couple of comments:

- As other people have pointed out, the search should work better with airport codes, and should probably prioritize more popular airports. Typing in "atlanta" for example brings up several general aviation fields. Also typing in "ohare" doesn't work, you have to type in "o'hare" (with the single quote).

- Its not super obvious that you can enter tips until you create an account and login. I would expect to see the "Add new tip" button when logged out, and be asked to login/create an account when I press it if I'm not logged in.

- You probably want prioritize a UI that works well on phones, since I imagine a lot of users of something like this will be walking around the airport while on the site.

- The weather map is in celsius. You might want to put it in fahrenheit for US airports.

Great idea, was just thinking about the need for something like this while travelling through Europe last month.

One idea - have specific info (not just buried in the tips) on how to find WiFi and power outlets. They're top concerns when flying through a new airport, and it's often not publicized or documented anywhere.

That's a great idea. It would be really handy to have one location to look for these kind of informations, usually I just resort to frequent flyer forums or Foursquare.

Doesn't appear to be mobile friendly (Opera on Android) - would suggest that you address that as a major issue. If I'm roaming, I don't want to pay excessive data charges. If I'm wandering down to baggage reclaim, I don't want to pan around on my phone.

Agreed would expect most use to be mobile

Good idea, the autocomplete dialog is just too slow, which makes for an awful first impression.

I should be able to just type 'lhr' and enter

Instead, i need to

- type 'lhr'

- wait a painful second for the autocomplete dialog to load

- click on 'lhr' from the dropdown list

- click 'go'

If I type an exact code and hit search it should go through. I should not have to select from the dropdown

Foursquare also has some useful tips on it:

http://blog.foursquare.com/post/87115587663/foursquare-tips-...

Searching the airport code didn't seem to bring up my airport. "SEA" brought up everything but Seattle-Tacoma.

Tip: If I type SEA and hit enter, even before waiting for the suggestions to load, it should take me to SEA :)

Typing 'sea' brought me Seattle-Tacoma as the first of the list.

But I agree, something like google "I'm feeling lucky" that would :

when you type a 3 letter code, redirects you directly to that airport

when you type a city name : redirects you to the main city's airport (For instance, typing Houston and pressing enter should give me George Bush Intercontinental)

Cool Idea. Wanted to add a tip but was required to sign up, so I didn't.

If you're worried about spam you could just hide tips from non-members until some manual review process?

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