Bibliography
These are the websites I have used during this project.
http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/user/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?language=en
Date accessed: Jan 21st
http://www.transportdirect.info/Web2/Home.aspx?repeatingloop=Y
Date accessed: Jan 21st
http://www.formspring.com/forms/?860774-l8BltHh5MS
Date accessed: Feb 3rd
My Prototype
I will be making a prototype for this interface, as the amount of information that i would want to be made available through this interface is too great for me to collate accurately. I will be using routes from Leeds to York, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bristol, London and Southampton as an example of how this interface will work.
There will be two options for tickets, single and return. The prototype will also only offer tickets on dates in January. I will create the buttons leading to other months on the calender, however these will not be in use, they will only be representations of where the buttons would be and how they would look.
Although the functions of this prototype are limited, I hope that there are enough functions to give an accurate representation of the possibilities availble through this interface.
3 Interface Designs
When I started designing the interface, I started with three different designs. I showed them to a range of people who woul potentially use the interface and asked them what they thought of my designs.
This was my first design. The information was to be entered into the four boxes at the top of the screen, and once the information was entered it would move automatically down to the summary box at the bottom.
The positive feedback I got from this was that it was easy to see all the information as it was all on one page, however a couple of people commented that the page looked cluttered, and as the client brief specifically stated, the interface was to be as uncluttered and minimalistic as possible. Also the interface needed a keyboard or keypad to input the information, such as the train station. I wanted the interface to be available on a touch screen kiosk, so this factor made this design unsuitable.
This was my second design. I went for a more visual idea, where the information is dragged into the windows of the train carriages. I tried to make this look more interesting than just boxes, like in the previous design. The feedback I got from this idea was that it was a very childish idea. Adults would feel awkward using this, and I want my design to be suitable for as wide a range of age groups as possible.
However I did get some positive feedback from this, which was that the design was a little more interesting and would be easy to use. I tried to take these ideas and incorporate them into my third design.
This design is the one that I will develop.
I wanted used the map to bring a visual aspect to the journey planning part of the interface. The user can select the departing location and destination on the map. The names of the cities then appear to the left of the map so the user knows what they have selected. The user can then select the date of travel, and ticket type and finally check the times of their trains. I also designed this with a help button which I would put in the corner of the screen, for the user to click on if they did not understand how to use the interface.
Research
This is the National Rail Enquiries website. This is one of the places where you can book tickets and plan journeys. As you can see the website is very cluttered and confusing. It provides alot of information for users, such as season tickets and Christmas and new year travel information. This site has alot more information than I planned to put into my interface, as I wanted to simplify the interface but I shall take into consideration that this information is needed by users.
This is the National Rail enquiries journey planner part of the website. You have to type in the names of the stations you’re travelling to and from, which is something I wanted to change. I wanted a more visual approach to planning the journeys and get rid of typing the names of the destinations.
This is the journey planner from the Transport for London website. Again you have to type in the names of the stations you want to depart from and arrive at. It also has an option for entering the postcode, address or place of interest. I think that this isn’t needed in my interface as it only makes it more complicated.
I also think that this interface would be difficult for someone who is not used to using computers to use, for example an elderly person. It is too fiddly and overly complicated.
This is a website that allows you to plan a journey from door to door. (You can visit this website here) The site is cluttered and very confusing. I think there is far too much information on the first page. However, although it isn’t the best designed site i’ve seen so far, the actually journey planning aspect of it is very clever. You enter two postcodes, departing and arriving, and it plans the whole journey for you. You can choose whether you want to go by car or public transport.
It then gives you a visual representation of the journey. It includes times and links to the sites for booking tickets and viewing times. It also includes walking distances and times.
There are also different options to choose, so you can decide whether you want to go by train or bus etc.
These touch screen kiosks are in the South Train Station of Changsha, Hunan. They provide travel information, times, ticket prices and platforms. They are simple and quick to use, and mean that less staff are needed, as there is less demand for information from customer services.
My Response To The Client Brief
My audience is everyone that would use a train for traveling on longer train journeys. From the very young to the very old, my interface must be suitable for all types of people, all ages.
My target audience may or may not have knowledge of using computers. As it is such a wide range of people I am targeting, I must account for users with different levels of familiarity of interfaces such as this.
I want to provide them with an interface that will let them easily plan long distance journeys. I want to include a more visual representation of the journey, rather than just text.
My target audience may have disabilities, and I want the interface to be accessible for people of all abilities.
Although I want my interface to appeal to as many people as possible, I think that the people that will use it the most will be people aged 18 to 35, who are familiar with this sort of technology and use public transport a lot. I think people who are less familiar with using public transport would be more inclined to go to a ticket office, for the comfort of dealing with a person when planning a longer journey.
This type of technology would be more familar for younger generations, especially students.
I want to use images to give a more visual aspect to the interface. However I do not want to use any images purely for decoration, as the client brief states that the interface must be simple and minimalistic. I will also not use more than two colours when designing this interface, to avoid a cluttered look.
I will include buttons on each page to easily navigate back and forth, between screens, and also one to start again.
The goals of this interface are to provide quick and easy access of the travel information needed.
iPhones are so common these days, and there is an app for everything. I think it would be beneficial for this interface to be compatible with iPhones, either in the form of an app, or a web page that is easily viewed on the browser on the iPhone.
Client Brief
We would like you to design an interactive interface for planning long distance journeys via public transport. We would also like the interface to be capable of selling the travel tickets and providing the necessary travel information for someone to plan and book their journey.
We would like the interface to be suitable for users of all age ranges. We would like the interface to have a visual representation of the journey being undertaken.
We want the process of searching for a suitable route to be simplified, and for different travel companies to be unified rather than having seperate interfaces.
We want the interface to look minimilistic and as un-cluttered as possible, but still appealing to people of all ages. The interface must be useable for people who have no knowledge of computors.
Questionnaire
As a regular user of public transport I have decided to create an interface based on public transport. I want to make an interface for planning journeys and purchasing tickets. I have created a questionnaire using the online survey site formspring.com, to determine who my target audience and what they need from my interface.
You can see my whole survey here.
Here is the data from my survey.
Here we can see that the majority of people that answered my questionnaire where aged 18 to 25. After looking at other data later on in the questionnaire I found that the majority of people aged 18 to 25 answered that they used public transport between 4 to 7 days a week, so these will be my target audience.
(what kind of public transport do you use the most?)
This shows that train is the dominantly popular form of public transport, so I will base my interface around train lines and tickets.
Here we can see that 65% of people that answered bought their tickets at the station. I think that it would be worthwhile having the interface available at the train station, on a touch screen kiosk.
(how much do you spend on public transport per week?)
From this I can see that the amount of money spent on public transport varies greatly.
(do you use public transport for long journeys?)
85% of the people that answered use public transport for long journeys. The next question was dependent on this one being answered ‘Yes”. I asked if they had diffuculty planning long journeys.
Nearly 60% of users said that they had difficulty planning long journeys.
I then asked them how they planned their long journeys.
- National Rail website
- online
- ticket office
- at the station
- online, planning websites
- run for it if necessary and hope for the best
- websites
- at the station
- tfl.gov.uk
- Usually through websites like thetrainline.com
- online
- at the ticket office
- websites
- national rail journey planner
- Websites
- Online
- ticket websites
- online
I can see that the vast majority plan their journeys online, before arriving at the station. I think it is important to have the interface available online, so that there is a unified interface for planning journeys and buying tickets, accross different rail routes and train companies. I will have to take into consideration this when designing my interface.
Introduction
Project Brief
You will be creating an interactive product to meet the needs of your target audience.
You will need to consider who this design is for and what is your frame of reference.
You should have a few design ideas and sketches that show your working methods.
The delivery medium will be screen based and could include video ipods – portable
game devices – mobile phones or be web based. It will be your decision as to how it is
delivered and what the interaction will be for the user. (this can be a completely
creative product)
You will need to incorporate user feedback at several stages within the project; this
should include feedback on design selection, on a first testing phase and then the final
product as well. This will need to be documented through completed surveys and / or
questionnaires.
