MTA: Free UX Advice
Following on yesterday’s rant about the MTA’s abysmal website, I thought it only fair to provide some thoughts about how they could improve their online experience. I only looked at their home page, and I only spent about 30 minutes, but even such a cursory audit reveals a lot of room for improvement.
Click the image to view larger.
Remember: the MTA has two jobs. First and foremost, they have to get commuters around the City. Second, they have to make that process as efficient and safe as possible. Bad presentation of information, from signage to maps, brochures to websites, ensures that the experience can be frustrating at best, impossible at worst.
As the MTA clamors for more funding, better benefits, and higher fares, a better public face might help them in their pursuits. If they really get stuck, they can just look at some of the better municipal transit websites, like that of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District.
Oh, and their mobile site is subpar as well:
4 Comments
Mapping Transit Delays With Ushahidi — Jamie Forrest
29 December , 2010[...] determine what the best route was to wherever they had to go. Even more ideal would have been, as my friend Michael McWatters suggested, a trip planner that could re-route you away from the suspended lines and to the freely-moving [...]
Jamie Forrest
28 December , 2010Bullet points would’ve been great. In fact today’s front page has a bulleted list. Maybe they read your post! It’s still organized by “agency” though, as if MTA customers are supposed to know what an agency is. Just tell me if my subway/bus is running!
Jamie Forrest
28 December , 2010Keep in mind that this page is meant to be a “light” version of their usual site, so that when they’re getting hammered by traffic the site can still at least serve the most pertinent information. That would explain, I think, the lack of navigation elements, map, trip planning, search, and personalization.
That said, you are absolutely right about most of the things that are bad on that page, like the “Service Advisories by Agency” thing. And I also think if they coded it properly, they *could* handle things like maps, trip planning, etc. They can’t be getting more pageviews than Facebook, even in an emergency.
Also, it’s not like their normal site is any good either.
Michael McWatters
28 December , 2010Yesterday their site was down for several hours, so a lighter site would probably make sense (so would a more robust hosting situation, I guess).
Why don’t they make it even lighter and reduce those 5 paragraphs into a few useful bullet points? Put a simple list of only the most important items on the home page, with links to all the rest?
Thanks for the feedback! Let’s redesign that sucker!