Grand River Transit

[danbrotherston]

100% with Dan.

Presto is ridiculously confusing as it is. This has like 3X the line items making it even worse.

I tap on a bus - that’s one line. One thing. It should not be multiple things. And what the heck is a “SV”?!

When you pay with Stored Value (SV) it's not a single transaction. It's multi-part transaction composed of individual actions. Another action is added if there's a pending load transaction in the system. Because of the way the system works a load transaction occurs at the time of a card tap and the card is loaded at the farebox not at the time you purchased the fare product and not online.

I don't agree with Dan on this because over simplifying what happens with the card can confuse some users of the system. Good UX shouldn't remove access to information that some users would find helpful.

Presto, for example, has a transfer credit that is credited to the card when you transfer between GO buses and between some other transit agencies that use Presto. That credit is credited to the balance of the card on a card tap and is a separate action from the initial fare subtracted when you tap on the GO bus you may transfer to.

It does not matter that the system is implemented that way.  What matters is how the users model of the system. Forcing your users to understand implementation details (including things like knowing what 'SV' stand for) is a guarantee that your users will not understand your system, and will make mistakes when using it. Good UX absolutely should remove access to information which doesn't enhance the user experience.

Presto is another example of an unnecessary and overly complex system.  To this day, myself, a relative expert in how Presto works, still cannot figure out what every line in the presto record means, and generally I need a calculator to figure out how much I paid for one trip. That is a complete failure.

You really should go read the book "The design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman. It is eye opening.

[trainspotter139]

When you pay with Stored Value (SV) it's not a single transaction. It's multi-part transaction composed of individual actions. Another action is added if there's a pending load transaction in the system. Because of the way the system works a load transaction occurs at the time of a card tap and the card is loaded at the farebox not at the time you purchased the fare product and not online.

I don't agree with Dan on this because over simplifying what happens with the card can confuse some users of the system. Good UX shouldn't remove access to information that some users would find helpful.

Presto, for example, has a transfer credit that is credited to the card when you transfer between GO buses and between some other transit agencies that use Presto. That credit is credited to the balance of the card on a card tap and is a separate action from the initial fare subtracted when you tap on the GO bus you may transfer to.

It does not matter that the system is implemented that way.  What matters is how the users model of the system. Forcing your users to understand implementation details (including things like knowing what 'SV' stand for) is a guarantee that your users will not understand your system, and will make mistakes when using it. Good UX absolutely should remove access to information which doesn't enhance the user experience.

Presto is another example of an unnecessary and overly complex system.  To this day, myself, a relative expert in how Presto works, still cannot figure out what every line in the presto record means, and generally I need a calculator to figure out how much I paid for one trip. That is a complete failure.

You really should go read the book "The design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman. It is eye opening.

The problem is, there is money involved. You simply can't remove access to the minute details of what goes on because it is relevant to users. Users who are money savvy are going to want to know those details. 

You can have the best of both worlds here. You can have easy to read and easy to follow information about changes in card balance in the card history view AND access to minute details of a specific card tap without compromising UX.

[robdrimmie]

Part of the problem of course is that many organizations have given up on maintaining control of their IT systems. They think it’s just peachy to have external vendors controlling their data and how they access it. This should be considered absolutely unacceptable, in the same way that they would consider it unacceptable for unpaid interns to do all their cash handling.

Yes, I meant to call this sentiment out and emphatically agree with it in your earlier post. I'm more and more inclined to think that the easygofarecard site has to be on a separate domain because they're using tooling provided by the vendor of the system with a very thin layer of colour and logo customization on top of it, built by an outsourced organization.

I think there's a fair argument to be made for outsourcing IT and development for some organizations and systems, but do heartily agree about this specific case. Managing fares and the relationship with riders should be considered a core competency for the GRT. The knowledge and understanding and that comes from building and maintaining the system should be owned (both financially and in the responsibility sense) internally.

[danbrotherston]

It does not matter that the system is implemented that way.  What matters is how the users model of the system. Forcing your users to understand implementation details (including things like knowing what 'SV' stand for) is a guarantee that your users will not understand your system, and will make mistakes when using it. Good UX absolutely should remove access to information which doesn't enhance the user experience.

Presto is another example of an unnecessary and overly complex system.  To this day, myself, a relative expert in how Presto works, still cannot figure out what every line in the presto record means, and generally I need a calculator to figure out how much I paid for one trip. That is a complete failure.

You really should go read the book "The design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman. It is eye opening.

The problem is, there is money involved. You simply can't remove access to the minute details of what goes on because it is relevant to users. Users who are money savvy are going to want to know those details. 

You can have the best of both worlds here. You can have easy to read and easy to follow information about changes in card balance in the card history view AND access to minute details of a specific card tap without compromising UX.

Yes, you can remove those details, the designer is in fact in control of the user interface. When you see your bank transactions, you don't see every minutia of the transaction, but you see an impression of it consistent with your understanding of what a transaction is, and because it matches your mental model, you don't even object.

I'm sure some people have been curious as to what actually happens under the hood, but so what, it still works fine for them. Just because I'm a savvy user who want's to know those details (I don't actually), doesn't mean I should be allowed to know them.  It's wrong to degrade the user experience for everyone, in order to satisfy the curiosity of a few users.

Yes, you can enhance the interface to provide access to this underlying data in some way, but that's not what was done here, just because you can provide access to this data doesn't mean this is a good interface.  This is a terrible interface.

[creative]

“It's wrong to degrade the user experience for everyone, in order to satisfy the curiosity of a few users.”

I may not often agree with Dan but this is so true! Simplify, simplify, simplify.

[trainspotter139]

The problem is, there is money involved. You simply can't remove access to the minute details of what goes on because it is relevant to users. Users who are money savvy are going to want to know those details. 

You can have the best of both worlds here. You can have easy to read and easy to follow information about changes in card balance in the card history view AND access to minute details of a specific card tap without compromising UX.

Yes, you can remove those details, the designer is in fact in control of the user interface. When you see your bank transactions, you don't see every minutia of the transaction, but you see an impression of it consistent with your understanding of what a transaction is, and because it matches your mental model, you don't even object.

I'm sure some people have been curious as to what actually happens under the hood, but so what, it still works fine for them.  Just because I'm a savvy user who want's to know those details (I don't actually), doesn't mean I should be allowed to know them.  It's wrong to degrade the user experience for everyone, in order to satisfy the curiosity of a few users.

Yes, you can enhance the interface to provide access to this underlying data in some way, but that's not what was done here, just because you can provide access to this data doesn't mean this is a good interface.  This is a terrible interface.

You are missing the point. You cannot simply not have a way to show all the details of what each card tap does and how it affects the balance of the card. If you were to design it the way you are suggesting, more users would complain about not being able to see more detailed information than if they just stuck with the existing design.

[trainspotter139]

“It's wrong to degrade the user experience for everyone, in order to satisfy the curiosity of a few users.”

I may not often agree with Dan but this is so true! Simplify, simplify, simplify.

This isn't about the curiosity of a few users. This is about financial transparency. Users always want to know what happens to their money.

[danbrotherston]

When is the last time you complained about not seeing all the minutia behind your banking transactions, or felt that there was no transparency on where your money was going? Trust me, you're not seeing all the details.

I'm not suggesting doing the things you claim I'm suggesting--and this is the second time I have explained that. In fact, the current design does the things you say would be bad, it hides that relevant information through obscurity and broken design. The presto interface is the best example, I can never see how much money something cost me. But on the GRT design, I still cannot see how the amount column affects my balance.

I'm suggesting designing the interface so that it shows information relevant to the model the user has. That means by definition, if the information is important to the user, it is shown, if it isn't it's hidden, and the information is presented in a way that is consistent with how the user understands the system. That is *NOT* the case that is happening now.

[robdrimmie]

I think there is value in exposing all the details to users, but I don't think it's a hard requirement.

Also, I work on a bank application. There's a lot of details about their money that is impossible for users to see. Dan's example is a good one.

[tomh009]

Also, I work on a bank application. There's a lot of details about their money that is impossible for users to see. Dan's example is a good one.

Ha! Worked on (the back end of) a home banking application for one of the big Canadian banks. Then Internet happened and a whole lot of work had to be thrown out and done again.

[boatracer]

Can't find if this was posted previously but it looks like the bid for the UW transit station has been cancelled. There were only 2 bidders and it must have been over their approved budget.

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....aba71859e3

[danbrotherston]

Can't find if this was posted previously but it looks like the bid for the UW transit station has been cancelled.  There were only 2 bidders and it must have been over their approved budget.

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....aba71859e3

Wow!  So what does cancelled mean?

Honestly, how can it cost 8 million dollars to pour some concrete and put up some shelters, it's not like this involves major underground works or grading or retaining walls or something.

What does this mean for LRT and GRT connectivity.

Bloody university...keeps on giving.

[ijmorlan]

Honestly, how can it cost 8 million dollars to pour some concrete and put up some shelters, it's not like this involves major underground works or grading or retaining walls or something.

I don’t know — but right away I see an opportunity to save some money. In the documents, it plans for building a temporary road around the construction area. But I know that is not needed. How do I know? Am I spouting off outside of my area of expertise? Well, yes, but the road in question is currently closed to motor vehicle traffic and has been so since the LRT was under construction. So it is definitely OK for it to stay that way until the transit construction is done. So they should start by just deleting Stage 1 of the construction. Not sure how much this would save however as most of the digging will still be needed.

On another note, I saw some interesting details. For one, the electrical power specified includes a number of 15kVA installations. If I understand correctly, this rating means that each one could use about 15MW of power. The only thing I can think of in a transit station that would use that much electricity would be rapid charging of electric bus batteries. There are also some radiant heaters listed, but they seem to take 20A single-pole feeds.

So together with the shelters, it’s significantly more than just a paving job (road/sidewalk). It would be interesting to know how much they were expecting to have to pay. Is there confirmation that the price is why the bid is cancelled?

[frzn]

Can't find if this was posted previously but it looks like the bid for the UW transit station has been cancelled.  There were only 2 bidders and it must have been over their approved budget.

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....aba71859e3

Wow!  So what does cancelled mean?

Honestly, how can it cost 8 million dollars to pour some concrete and put up some shelters, it's not like this involves major underground works or grading or retaining walls or something.

What does this mean for LRT and GRT connectivity.

Bloody university...keeps on giving.

It was most likely canceled due to the impending bill that allows the Region to not be consider a "contractor", therefore not having these contracts only being open to bidding on businesses that are affiliated with the carpenters union. These businesses were making crazy money based on closed tender practices. 

They will re-tenderer it at a later date and get a cheaper price.

[trainspotter139]

Honestly, how can it cost 8 million dollars to pour some concrete and put up some shelters, it's not like this involves major underground works or grading or retaining walls or something.

I don’t know — but right away I see an opportunity to save some money. In the documents, it plans for building a temporary road around the construction area. But I know that is not needed. How do I know? Am I spouting off outside of my area of expertise? Well, yes, but the road in question is currently closed to motor vehicle traffic and has been so since the LRT was under construction. So it is definitely OK for it to stay that way until the transit construction is done. So they should start by just deleting Stage 1 of the construction. Not sure how much this would save however as most of the digging will still be needed.

On another note, I saw some interesting details. For one, the electrical power specified includes a number of 15kVA installations. If I understand correctly, this rating means that each one could use about 15MW of power. The only thing I can think of in a transit station that would use that much electricity would be rapid charging of electric bus batteries. There are also some radiant heaters listed, but they seem to take 20A single-pole feeds.

So together with the shelters, it’s significantly more than just a paving job (road/sidewalk). It would be interesting to know how much they were expecting to have to pay. Is there confirmation that the price is why the bid is cancelled?

the temp road has bus landings on it which to me seems as though they want the buses to use it ASAP due to the impending start of ION and the related GRT changes.

Edit: 15 kVA is the equivalent resistive load of about 15 kilowatts max.