Design.

So, I was thinking I might start posting design observations here. My first entry will be about a bad, bad UI, one caused by human neglect, mostly. It involves Seattle’s Metro buses. I usually catch the 31 to get home from the grad studio and have missed it a couple of times, even though I was sitting at the bus stop 10-15 minutes before its scheduled arrival.

Scheduled arrivals, I might add, are another usability factor here. For reasons unbeknownst to me, Metro lists on its schedules the time that the bus leaves it previous stop, rather than the time it will reach the current stop. I don’t understand this logic. It seems predicting the time either way would entail the same amount of planning, but listing the time the bus actually gets to the current stop seems much more logical to me. Which Metro actually does with some buses at some locations, but not all. So, the inconsistency also lends to the problem.

Anyway, so one day, I’m sitting waiting at my regular stop where I catch the 31, only I’m waiting for a bus going in the opposite direction. As I’m sitting there, I notice a bus that I thought was the 65 change its display number to ’31’ as it leaves the bus stop. And it dawns on me that this is why I’d missed it before even though I’d been early to the bus stop. Apparently, this bus sported two different route numbers, depending on which direction it was travelling.

So, I’m sitting waiting for it earlier this week, and now cognizant of the fact that the route changes numbers, I started watching for the 65 to see if its number changed when it hit my stop. I didn’t, so I thought maybe I’d been mistaken. Then, the 68 rolls in. Still curious and thinking that I’d perhaps gotten my numbers wrong, I watch the 68 closely, noting that it was a few minutes before the 31 was scheduled to leave the previous stop (about a quarter to half mile down the road). Sure enough, as I’m sitting there watching the 68, passengers get off, new passengers board, and, after the driver closes the door and starts to pull away from the curb, I note the number changing to ’31’. I run after the bus and start pounding on the door, exasperatingly huffing to the driver that he changed the number too late and there was no way I would have known this bus was, in fact, the 31. There certainly is no warning of this on the physical schedule at the bus stop. He just grumbled at me.