World Usability Day: Bristol Temple Meads Usability Review

This year the UPA’s World Usability Day falls on November the 13th. The theme for the event this year is transportation. With this in mind cxpartners decided to undertake a usability review of Bristol’s train transportation hub, and Brunel’s landmark station, Bristol Temple Meads.

We used some of the evaluation techniques we use when evaluating the usability of a website, and have tried to tease out some useful insights in to improving web usability along the way.

Flow

The movement of users around the different parts of a website is refereed to as flow. A website with a good flow will enable users to successfully navigate confidently and without confusion from place to place.

Looking at the flow of travellers in Temple Meads station, and considering the age of the building we were impressed by the use of space and flow of users. Since the building was built, there have been many changes to train travel and the station has been modified to incorporate these well - such as the inclusion of the fast ticket machines and train time departure screens.

The station’s layout enables passengers to que and buy tickets, then move on to view train times on screens, and then go through to the platform. This system works for most users passing through the station. The only problems arise when a user behaves outside of the norm and needs to carry out a different transaction - like checking train times before booking tickets. This alternative behaviour can cause a blip in the flow of users moving from one place to the other.

Problems also arise when large numbers of passengers are leaving the station at the same time as large numbers are entering. The area outside WHSmith becomes very over crowded and performing simple tasks like checking train times on the monitors becomes difficult.

Looking at this scenario in terms of a website, using a dated back-end system or unreliable hosting, that can’t cope with heavy traffic produces a similar result - the user journey is interrupted or broken. Using unreliable technology negatively impacts the user experience on a site, as does an inefficient journey that does not adequately anticipate what the user needs.

Learnability

The division of clear areas within the station helps travellers who have not visited the station before quickly learn how to use it, in the same way that when users first land on a webpage, they need to be able to learn to use it quickly if they are to successfully accomplish their chosen task . The more time users have to spend on an activity, the more likely they are to abandon it, or take away a negative perception of the process. Finding ways to improve learnability online can increase return or repeat visits.

Meeting the needs of different user groups

The provision of alternative methods of ticket purchase in the station enables users who are familiar with using computers to fast track their ticket purchase and use a ticket machine. By keeping human staff on the counter to cope with other ticket sales, the station can provide a quick solution for those who do not need assistance, and a more personal service for those users with less confidence or experience or who have a more complex query.

In the context of a website, its like putting a contact telephone number on your site - users like to see that they can speak to a real person if they need to and it gives them confidence in the service they are using, as there is accountability if something goes wrong. We have seen the number (and cost) of calls to call centres reduce significantly by simply adding a visible contact number to a website.

Error prevention

The automated ticket barriers at Temple Meads are problematic in the area of error prevention. The barriers function by allowing users to pass through them in both directions depending on how the station staff have configured them. This causes confusion to passengers trying to quickly enter and exit the platform area as the function can change daily. To identify which direction is in use, passengers have to carefully look at a small area of the machine that displays this information via a small screen showing a green tick or red cross.

When we visited the station we noted that approximately every 2.5 minutes a passenger tries to use the a machine going in the wrong direction. When the station was busier more passengers tried to do this. During rush hour, these errors will cause confusion and a block in the system, causing other travellers annoyance and inconvenience.

The problem lies in the barrier design - the labeling and instruction messages are located too far away from the area that passengers have to interact with (the ticket slots). The gap between the message and the interaction combined with the subtle and difficult to read message produce confusion for the user.

We see similar problems on websites, when users can’t tell the difference between particular labels, for example, its common for people to confuse ’sign up’ and ’sign in’ as being interchangeable.

The barriers could be easily improved with more visible and appropriately positioned labeling. We regularly see how small issues such as this gradually accumulate during a user’s journey through a website and erodes trust. These individual problems in isolation are not of major significance, but when combined can cause major issues for a user who then has a negative brand experience or abandon a transaction. This can has a real impact on a company’s bottom line.

It has been interesting looking at the usability of one of Bristol’s landmark iconic locations, and surprising how the problems a building faces are so similar to that of a website.

If you want to talk more with us on this subject, or any other usability issue, we will be at Bristol’s Watershed on World Usability Day on November the 13th running a usability surgery. Drop in and talk usability with us!