Grand River Transit

[Viewfromthe42]

I always assume that when "difficult", "parking", and "Downtown Kitchener" are used in the same sentence, the word "free" has been left out.

As well as "before 6pm" I believe (aren't a lot of city lots free after 6?).

[robdrimmie]

Yep. Most are free on weekends as well.

[KevinL]

[KevinL]

PSA: If you're on the EasyGo beta and you use Auto Renew, make sure that its status is active on the website tool. Both myself and a fellow user found it shifted to 'dormant' and expected renewals did not go through; you need to reactivate it if that's the case.

[bgb_ca]

PSA: If you're on the EasyGo beta and you use Auto Renew, make sure that its status is active on the website tool. Both myself and a fellow user found it shifted to 'dormant' and expected renewals did not go through; you need to reactivate it if that's the case.

Interesting. In regards to that though, in the past, what day did the autorenew occur? I was thinking of setting that up.

[KevinL]

It depends on the product you're renewing. For me it's monthly passes, so it goes through on a date late in the month; for the other user he has an automatic top-up set for when his balance dips below a certain value.

Upon further discussion on Twitter with the GRT team, it looks like mine was due to an unrelated credit-card issue, so my alarm may not have ben as urgent as I indicated.

[bgb_ca]

It would be monthly for me. Just didn't know if it went through on the 20th when new passes are typically available, or the last day of the month. (Or a day or two before)

[robdrimmie]

I hope they would do passes more than 48 hours before the end of the month, since they caution users that transactions may take that long to be reflected in a pass.

I think I've been really lucky in that I've never been bit by the delay. More than once I've added value after realizing on my morning commute to work that I was out and had it active on the card on my way home, but given that it's possible for fare boxes not to be updated when they're taken out for the day I'm hopeful someone chose to add a small layer of protection.

I also switched from value-adding to monthly pass with zero problems and can see that I still have value on my card. I don't trust myself to remember to turn off auto renewal in the spring when I switch back to biking so haven't experimented directly with it myself.

[KevinL]

My only concern is that the failed transactions that led to my autorenew going dormant wasn't indicated to me. They had my email, I could have addressed it if I had known.

[danbrotherston]

Yeah, notification would be good. These are all UX things which I have zero confidence in them getting right.

It would be nice if you could set the autorenew months. Or just a confirmation email.

It would also be nice if those with autorefill could just go down to zero, or negative, and be autorefilled when that happens. Being forced to carry a balance essentially increases the cost of owning the card.

[robdrimmie]

Yeah, notification would be good.  These are all UX things which I have zero confidence in them getting right.

Yeah, the entire site feels like it was built by a developer who was given a halfway decent component library and a 30-page specification document and told to come back in 5 weeks. Which is my general impression of how eSolutions does work.

[danbrotherston]

Yeah, notification would be good.  These are all UX things which I have zero confidence in them getting right.

Yeah, the entire site feels like it was built by a developer who was given a halfway decent component library and a 30-page specification document and told to come back in 5 weeks. Which is my general impression of how eSolutions does work.

I didn't see the coding behind the site, so I don't want to express an opinion on that, but the biggest challenge I saw, and I see this on so many other sides, is the usability/user experience.

The art is pretty, etc., but when it comes to actually use it, it's almost completely broken. This is such a common problem too, from everything from websites to washing machines. Don Norman's book should be required reading for anyone building anything.

[plam]

Yeah, notification would be good.  These are all UX things which I have zero confidence in them getting right.

Yeah, the entire site feels like it was built by a developer who was given a halfway decent component library and a 30-page specification document and told to come back in 5 weeks. Which is my general impression of how eSolutions does work.

Alas, most of our CS/CE programs at the University of Waterloo don't require courses in user interfaces, and indeed, no such courses are available to students in Computer Engineering in particular. People don't necessarily know what they don't know. Really, there should be a designer working with the team.

Autoload: I've used that functionality on PRESTO forever, but I've also never had a monthly pass.

[robdrimmie]

Really, there should be a designer working with the team.

Yes, exactly. I don't say the above to be cruel to the individual developer(s) or designers involved, but to the way I perceive eSolution's business to work based on their output of city-owned applications over the years. They provide functionality that minimally meets specifications, and either the city doesn't care about UX or isn't knowledgeable enough to judge what good UX is.

I've been a developer professionally since 1998 and if left to my own devices will 100% output a garbage pile of unusable interfaces. Working without a product designer (or without adequate attention from one shared on several projects) is deeply unpleasant and results in poor but cheap products.

[timio]

Every developer should take a Design Thinking course. They don't necessarily need the skills of design, but should at least understand the principles behind a good design to help inform the end product.