Hipmunk does start the new search with old parameters. And once one has discovered that, the mental burden of clicking on "New Search" does go down a little bit. Agree.
As you point out, the obvious counterpoint: how is this better than modifying the current search parameters?
One could perhaps argue that when a person is looking for 2 entirely different flights, it'd be useful to open the new search in a new window. But honestly, how common is the use case of a person searching for 2 entirely different flights at the same time? Not very common. When I'm on a travel website, I'm usually trying to book one particular flight. Perhaps a travel agency would disagree but is that really the mainstream market?
And if I needed to actually book 2 different flights, I'd just open a new tab in my browser to search for the 2nd flight. The "New Search" tab has no business being there.
To your 2nd point: I noticed that and was completely lost when I couldn't find a way to get rid of the popup. Then I realized by trial and error that clicking elsewhere on the page made it go away. This behavior might be intentional: don't give the user an obvious option to cancel, and thereby hopefully increase conversion. But it's going to backfire - users don't like to feel trapped.
Good points.
Hipmunk does start the new search with old parameters. And once one has discovered that, the mental burden of clicking on "New Search" does go down a little bit. Agree.
As you point out, the obvious counterpoint: how is this better than modifying the current search parameters?
One could perhaps argue that when a person is looking for 2 entirely different flights, it'd be useful to open the new search in a new window. But honestly, how common is the use case of a person searching for 2 entirely different flights at the same time? Not very common. When I'm on a travel website, I'm usually trying to book one particular flight. Perhaps a travel agency would disagree but is that really the mainstream market?
And if I needed to actually book 2 different flights, I'd just open a new tab in my browser to search for the 2nd flight. The "New Search" tab has no business being there.
To your 2nd point: I noticed that and was completely lost when I couldn't find a way to get rid of the popup. Then I realized by trial and error that clicking elsewhere on the page made it go away. This behavior might be intentional: don't give the user an obvious option to cancel, and thereby hopefully increase conversion. But it's going to backfire - users don't like to feel trapped.
Kayak has a similar popup with a clear X option.
Durga