FlightAware's Redesigned Flight Tracking Page

I have been with you guys for over 11 years, and I have to say the new redesigned web page was by far the worst change I have seen during this time. Why take something that worked well and was simple yet provided adequate amount of information for any user? Changing it to bigger fonts and larger spacing takes up more of the page therefore making it more complicated to read and understand?

Adding things like daylight/nighttime imagery to the maps early this year was an example of a great change!

Maybe I am in the minority, but please reconsider this design.

Thank you!

Thank you for the feedback ccrosbie and thank you for using FlightAware for the past 11 years.

With the redesign we offer two different views that allow you to pick how to view the flight page. The standard (default) view is likely what you have been seeing, but if you click on the sprocket near the top, middle of the page, you can select to always see aviator view, a more condensed view, that may provide a better experience with the new flight page.

If you have any issues finding the sprocket to make the change, you can add “#fndtn-flightPageSettingsAirportTab” to the end of any flight page to get the options. For example, flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA … AirportTab.

Please let us know your thoughts on the condensed (aviator) view vs the default view.

You’re welcome cbw. Your website has been one of my go to websites personally and professionally!

I didn’t notice that option up near the top, thanks for pointing it out. IMHO its a little better in “aviator view” but I still think the spacing and font size is way overboard. Why not just have an option of the legacy version also?

Thank you!

Thank you for the comments on that. I will pass this on to the team regarding the font sizes.

There are several reasons we are not able to run the two different versions in parallel, but one of the bigger reasons is now the page is formatted much better for your mobile browser. Currently, you have to specifically request the non-mobile version of the site from the home page to get the new design, but we will have the full mobile experience released in the very near future.

I know change is difficult, but we will take all the feedback that is provided and hopefully make your experience on FlightAware better than what it was before. Again, thank you for providing this information to us.

Didn’t like at first. Aviator view is pretty good though.

My first view of your newly designed flight tracking page shows aircraft in metres and km/hr. WHAT!

How do I change it back to feet and knots.

I have just the opposite opinion. I really like the new design. It feels fresh and looks good. More information than before is a welcome change. To each his own I guess!

Cheers!

Select “aviator view” as previously described and then change the units.

The new page doesn’t seem to have the flight departure gate and arrival gate information. Am I missing something? Thanks.

We are working on a fix in aviator view to get those in. In the default view, those are available.

Great. Thanks.

On the old format, it showed the distance flown so far and the distance remaining. I don’t see that now. Is it there and I am missing it? I see time, but not distance (other than planned and direct).
Thanks!

We are also working on getting that back on the page. Sorry for the oversight.

I feel like this is part of the broader attempt to make the entire internet “bubbly”. Corporate intranet went this way several months ago, and I still struggle to find things that were easily located before.

Another aviation forum did this, and the participation on their boards has plummeted. (Airliners.net). They’ve recently stated that they’re working to go back to the old format, but that remains to be seen.

Sad to see, but there’s a trend here.

Thank you for the feedback. One of the main focuses of the redesign was to enhance the way the site looked/scaled on mobile devices. We did not intentionally leave anything out that was on the past flight page (a couple things were missed, but we are working to add them back in), but added additional information to be easily found, like gate times, added different views of the flight page, and placed more important information more prominently.

As people are moving more towards using the internet on mobile devices, we needed a design that would scale… The new flight page does that. Although we have not made the new design fully available on mobile at this time, it will be a much better experience when the entire project is completed.

We understand that change is difficult, and provide a customer service team 7 days a week if you have any questions on any of the new features or where a feature might have moved to.

CBW: The thing that makes no sense in this rationale, especially for FlightAware, is that you already have a very elegant mobile app.

While the larger spaces around clickable links make sense in a mobile environment where touchscreen accuracy is a factor, that’s not the case in desktop environments. There’s no reason (that I get) to force mobile sites on a desktop environment. Many other web developers have parallel sites that detect which browser/device you’re using and display accordingly. (Facebook and Amazon, for example, have desktop and mobile sites that work in parallel.)

I, too, have been usung this site for a number of years, and, truthfully, it is getting harder and harder to use. Why change something that worked so well???

What do you find more difficult to use?

I primarily view the FA full-site on my phone, have been doing that for several years now. The only thing that looks wrong to me is the “activity log” flight history and scheduled flights are off to the right side and over-write each other verses being below on a regular computer.

I am in line with the consensus of this thread that the new is worse than the old. Lots of problems many of them mentioned above ie no distance, too big of fonts, too bright.

Add to that that there seem to be a lot of “artifacts” ie flights that are not really there.

Right now I am looking at KSEA and flight CHH495 an A330 is/was supposed to arrive at 10:20 am but is just bouncing around East of SeaTac.

Altitudes are wrong on aircraft near the airport, ASA2241 was shown as at 300 ft and 128 knots for about the last 4 miles before landing. Other aircraft near the field have similar wrong altitudes/speeds.

The “answer” to questions like this seems to always be “change is hard”. Nope, wrong, change when it improves something is very easy. Change when it screws up something that worked better before the change than after the change is hard, and rightly so.

I also never understand why techies never finish a project before releasing it, preferring to use us as Alpha testers. It is not as if the “overlooked” features like distance are really obscure.