Archive for Website picks

Aviation “television” with ASB.TV

Every once in a while something new comes along that makes you sit back and say "wow!" This is one of those times. With ASB.TV, you get a wide variety of aviation content in a user interface that is like no other I have seen.

First, the content: ASB.TV has a collection of videos that are stunning. This is not low quality amateur stuff - these videos and animations are professional grade in both production quality and subject matter. You'll find airshow and air racing video, historic movies, animations, and more. Here's an example: 



The videos are compelling and by themselves could be reason enough for an entire website. But, as they say, there's more.  ASB.TV also has photographs, a forum, and a store where you can purchase merchandise. There's lots to see and do here.

Now for the user experience: This site lives within something they developed called Black Box, which is pretty unique. Think of a box or a cube with six sides. By navigating to the right or left, or up or down, you expose different sides of the box which then become your desktop. Within a side of the box, you can have a number panels that hold the content, be it a video player, the forum, or anything else, and these can be rearranged or resized to suit your need. I think of it as little worlds of content that you customize as you go along.

Black Box runs on top of Adobe Air, the same thing powering TweetDeck and other applications. If you don't have it yet, you will after the installation process. That process also involves installing the ASB application on your computer. Now, I know what you're thinking. I also resist installing "stuff" that just clutters up my PC. Well, this is different. Just do it and you'll see why.

So just who is ASB? Well ASB is Air Show Buzz. They were founded in 2006 to "deliver the exhilarating aviation lifestyle to millions of consumers worldwide by providing top flight content, thrilling live events, consumer products, social networking and a community that connects a worldwide shared passion for flight and a fearless approach towards life." Talk about a high bar! Well, I'd say they're rockin' so far.

ASB's tag line is "Escape Life's Gravity" and they offer a portfolio of branded businesses beyond ASB.TV: animated and live-action film and television entertainment, The Horsemen acrobatic fleet, and lifestyle branded merchandise. ASB also offers innovative branding and marketing for air shows and top-rated performers.

So go get set up with ASB's Black Box application and I guarantee you'll spend some quality aviation time with their content.


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December 18, 2009 · Filed under Airshows, Events, Photographs, Video, Website picks

Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields

My aviation website pick of the week from Episode 50 of the Airplane Geeks podcast:

My pick is Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields, a website with descriptions and images of 1,428 airfields in all 50 U.S. states.

The author is Paul Freeman, a pilot who says he has always been interested in the abandoned airfields that are all over the country. These airfields can sometimes be critical to a pilot in an emergency, and sometimes they just have a fascinating history.

To explore the site a bit, I pretty much randomly chose Jonnycake Airport in western CT. I found t was built between 1957-60, initially with a 2,400' unpaved runway, but later with a 2,800' paved runway. There are sectional chart images, and recollections from a pilot who trained there in 1960. Other photos show private planes at the airport in the early days and aerial photos of the airport.

The airport closed in 2004 after a dispute between the airport owners and the owner of the property, who no longer wanted an airport on his property. The pilots argued about the economic benefits to the region, and the property owner responded by saying in the past 50 years that only amounted to two nearby restaurants that were popular with visiting pilots.The town made noises about grabbing the land by eminent domain, the FAA made noises about buying the airport, and so it remains.  It's fascinating local history (in a lot more detail than I just related), but imagine that repeated for over 1,400 airports and you've got an impressive collection of aviation history here.

So, have a look at this site and you'll almost certainly find at least one abandoned airfield near you. Take the opportunity to learn a little local aviation history!

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June 10, 2009 · Filed under Airports, Website picks

An American Airlines customer experience

My aviation website pick of the week from Episode 49 of the Airplane Geeks podcast:

My pick is the blog of Dustin Curtis, a user interface designer. Specifically, Article 8 (Dear American Airlines) and Article 9 (Dear Dustin Curtis), which you can find in his blog index. Dustin Curtis wrote to American Airlines:

"I’m a user interface designer. I travel sometimes. Recently, I had the horrific displeasure of booking a flight on your website, aa.com. The experience was so bad that I vowed never to fly your airline again. But before we part ways, I have a couple questions and three suggestions for you."

His 3 suggestions?
  1. Treat this as a serious emergency across your entire company.
  2. Fire your entire design team, if you have one.
  3. Follow the lead of new, young, and innovative airlines like JetBlue and Virgin America. They know how to harness repeat business through excellent customer experience.

Curtis then went ahead and actually created a proposed redesign of the AA site. But then, 

"A user experience architect who works on AA.com sent me a response to my letter. He titled it ' You’re right. You’re so very right. And yet...'”

The response gives some really good insight into the process that large corporations use when creating something so seemingly simple as a web page. It turns out there are some 200 people who together determine just what you see at AA.com!

"The group running AA.com consists of at least 200 people spread out amongst many different groups, including, for example, QA, product planning, business analysis, code development, site operations, project planning, and user experience. We have a lot of people touching the site, and a lot more with their own vested interests in how the site presents its content and functionality. Fortunately, much of the public-facing functionality is funneled through UX, so any new features you see on the site should have been vetted through and designed by us before going public."

It all makes for very interesting reading and provides insights into why it is difficult for some companies to be responsive to customer needs at anything faster than glacial speed.

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May 30, 2009 · Filed under Airline, Blogs, Website picks