When a list is long it is nice to have some way to conveniently filter out just those things that most interest you. Kayak.com, the travel site, has found a way to present filtering options that are easy to use and gives you a good sense of what's getting filtered out and what's remaining. The following screen capture shows the how Kayak uses simple checkboxes to quickly filter out airlines and number of stops. To make the airline filters more meaningful Kayak shows the best price each airline offers.
The sliders are particularly useful for showing the flights within a specific time range. This lets you set a time range that is broader than the typical morning, afternoon, or evening choices on other airline travel sites. To kept the scale less clutter, Kayak shows the time range and day below the scale..
Kayak not only excels at providing easy and meaningful ways to directly filter lists, but also excels in methods for summarizing the content in lists. The following screen shot shows their matrix view of car rentals. The presentation make it very easy to compare prices by company and vehicle size.
If you have booked a flight online, you know that the cost of flights varies with the day of the week. Trying to find the best price for a planned trip can sometimes be a matter of changing the dates and waiting for the updated list of flights and prices. Kayak solves the problem by presenting a time chart view of the best and average prices. This lets you quickly find those dates when prices will be best.
Finding the information you want can be very arduous and time consuming. Kayak.com has show a way to give it's user a sense of control of the mountains of information about travel and accommodation choices.
