[LINK] OT: ACTION Bus Timetables

[Steven Clark]

On 25/10/2010 11:12 AM, Roger Clarke wrote:
> The design of web-sites to support public transport could be argued
> to be within the link list's scope.
>
> But I've marked this email as Off-Topic because it's mainly a
> confirmation of the utter unprofessionalism of so much IT work.

Your story is quite typical of a lot of 'service oriented' organisations 
that decide they need a website to be hip and cool and with-it ...

Quite a lot of organisations that go through with inflicting a website 
on the outside world make the same mistake(s): they design it 
themselves, and they design it for themselves.

Mind you, this is the same mistake they make with every other ICT system 
they stump up for, so that should come as no surprise.

How often do we see impenetrable menus, or indecipherable organisational 
regimes? In in my experience, a lot of design (and development) mistakes 
crop up because the person in charge of the pencil/mouse sees the 
universe from *inside* the organisation and cannot understand that their 
clever schema doesn't map to the outside so well.

Even AdelaideMetro, which does a better job, requires the use of 
multiple timetables and trigonometric gymnastics from time to time. They 
do have a tool that shows you where your nearest stop(s) are and the 
relevant bus routes on a Google Map. But you still have to haul 
out/download the timetable(s), and so on.

While in the ACT a few weeks back, one the one opportunity I had to take 
an 'ACTION' bus I chose to walk...

-- 
Steven R Clark, BSc(Hons) LLB/LP(Hons) /Flinders/, MACS, Barrister & 
Solicitor

PhD Scholar
School of Commerce, Division of Business
City West Campus, University of South Australia (UniSA)
http://people.unisa.edu.au/Steven.Clark

Deputy Director, Community Engagement Board (CEB)
Chair, Economic, Legal and Social Issues Committee (ELSIC)
Australian Computer Society (ACS)
http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=show&conID=acscas 
<http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=show&conID=acscas>

*Disclaimer:* This is email is not legal advice. Comments and statements 
above are based on my understanding of the issues at hand, and my 
attempts to understand them. They are intended to add to, and elicit 
discussion. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, opinions and statements 
are mine, not those of UniSA or the ACS.