Today I will be reviewing the Southwest app, which is designed to aid customers in air travel tracking and purchases. To start, the app appears on the phone as a blue icon with a yellow, red and blue striped heart. I like this because it jumps out at the eye, there are a few apps that I stare at my phone trying to locate and it never jumps out at me. (Looking at you DoorDash). Once logged into your account, your name and the number of points you have accumulated will show at the top of the screen. Along the bottom, there are buttons to book a flight, flight status, check-in, book a car, or other offers. The first three are quite convenient, and are easy to find as they are probably some of the most used functions in the app. Good contrast with a light background and dark blue words so it is easy to see. The functionality of most of the buttons is similar, choose destinations with a location pop-up, and dates for departure and return, then hit the find flights button. The results will appear in a list depending on depart times and then you can select the buttons on the right to choose your flight. Personal and credit card information is stored so it is pretty easy to purchase a ticket. Also, if you are tracking someone else’s flight, you can use the flight status function to pretty easily find the flight and track its status. Once checked in to the flight, the app will access the Wallet in the I-phone and add a digital boarding pass, which many travelers are now utilizing in lieu of paper copies. Those are the quick functions, you can also select the three bars at the top right to look at the expanded menu of options to find more information, as well as links to contact Southwest directly if needed. I would give the app a satisfactory rating in terms of user friendliness, design, and functionality, however there are a few improvements I would suggest. When searching for flights, the app will return the flights for the day of departure, and you can scroll left or right to see fares for previous or subsequent days. On the website, you can search and display a low fare calendar, which will give you the lowest fare for each day in the month. This is a great feature and would be helpful if included in the app. The home page displays any current deals or credit card opportunities. I would prefer to see that space utilized with all of the trips that I have upcoming (more than a couple days in the future). The app doesn’t do a great job of tracking that information and that would be preferable to searching an email confirmation. My last recommendation is to decrease the areas where they display offers. I understand the need for sales but I also would prefer that the space be taken with functional tools instead of offers I am not interested in and don’t need. For example, I already have a southwest card where I earn points, and am logged in the app with that information, so it is redundant to run the ad. Other than that I am pleased with the performance of the app and will continue to use it.
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