Thursday, October 8, 2009

New Site Design Deployed

Well, after months of work, the new look and feel of Airport Guide has been deployed.* Please tell me what you think, good or bad.

I would like to point out a few new features to look for.
  • At the top of every page you will see a pulsating red button. Click on it and a pull down window deploys with Airport Delay maps. I love this feature!
  • You will notice a question mark in a small circle next to many titles and fields throughout the site. Just click on it for help and definitions on that section.
  • All of the site navigation has been moved into a horizontal green bar with drop down menus. This should provide you a more friendly user experience when trying to find your way around the site.
  • Speaking of navigation, I found that people coming to the site were not really sure where they should go since the site is now catering to both pilots and travelers. The site is now broken into six main areas:
    • Pilot Information - This area encompasses the original Airport Guide where you can Browse Airports, perform an Airport Search (you can actually do this on every page now in the upper left of the page) and see detailed information about an airport such as runways, frequencies, approach plates, FBOs, etc. You can also search our Certificated Airmen, Navaids, and other databases (coming soon) and get Customs Forms to name a few.
    • Pilot Resources - Here you can try out some great pilot logbooks, read the entire FARs and AIM, update FBO and fuel information, review NTSB Accident Reports, use Aviation Calulators, and read interesting aviation related white papers. There is more than I can list here but keep checking back as I will be constantly adding to this area. If you have any ideas for what you would like to see in this area please tell me.
    • Pilot Store - You need supplies so this is where you look for them. There is an Aircraft for Sale/Auction page as well as a full blown aviation store with most any pilot supply you could need including:



* Note: The detailed airport pages are undergoing their own redesign and should be deployed within a week.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Site Redesign Almost Ready

AirportGuide.com has been undergoing a 4 month site redesign to address our traveler visitors as well as our pilot visitors. I may be wrong but I believe we are the first site to take it to this level of catering to both groups.

As I start to transition to the new site this week, please be patient. You may notice some pages have changed and some haven't. This is a result of selectively replacing pages as they are proven to work.

Also note that this is just the beginning as I have a ton of ideas to implement. Look around the site and you may see glimpses of what is to come.

As always, if you feel you have a new feature, data source, web tool, idea, etc., that would be a good fit for this site then please contact me.

Thanks! --Mike