Notice
12/06/08 00:13
Code is Simple is on hiatus at the moment. As you can
probably tell, it has never really got going in its
present form.
I Just Want To Get A Bus!
I haven't posted much on here in a while, but I
recently had an unfortunate experience trying to use
technology to find out about making a journey on public
transport, which seemed to fit the bill for this site
perfectly.
Apologies if this becomes a bit of a rant, but the general idea of this blog is to look at tech from the perspective of an end-user, and that is something that as far as I can tell, the designers of transportdirect.info haven't done.
For those of you outside the UK, transportdirect.info is a government run public transport and journey planning site. You put in the details of where you are, and where you want to go, add the details of timing, and in theory the site then quickly shows you how to make that journey on busses, trains, trams, ferries and planes (but only lifeline air services in the Northern and Western Isles).
Unfortunately it doesn't quite manage that. First, entering something simple like "Manchester Piccadilly" in the destination box, then selecting "Station" in the type box will lead to the user having to go through an extra step to tell the system that they really did mean Manchester Piccadilly train station. This is something that really shouldn't be necessary. Why can't the system pick up the fact that the user has entered the name of the main train station in Manchester and also selected that the place they are looking for is a train station, and put the two together. It could even do this on the fly and use AJAX to prompt the user to refine their selection without reloading the whole page.
When you do manage to enter the details of your journey, the system throws up the most useless results page. Any change in what is displayed requires a full page reload. Have the designers never heard of Web 2.0? If you want to see a map of the journey, the site still uses static images for the maps, meaning that if the zoom level or place that the map is centred on are not quite perfect, then you have to, yes you guessed it, reload the page! This might not have bothered me a couple of years ago, but I am used to using Google Maps so much that when I have to go back to these old style maps, the user experience can seem infuriating.
I really can't see why the site can't be redesigned to make use of modern Web technology. It could be so much better, and could make it so much easier to use public transport in Britain. I am constantly envious of the Google Transit system that is in place for cities like Portland, or Torino. As for my attempted bus journey, I gave up on transportdirect.info and tried the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive website, where I had to download a five megabyte PDF map of the whole south of Manchester in order to find that the number 23 would probably take me to where I wanted to go.
Seriously, if you're thinking of making a major public service website, make it good. Don't design it for wowing a first time net user in a local library, design it to be functional as an quick, efficient every day tool for everyone.
Apologies if this becomes a bit of a rant, but the general idea of this blog is to look at tech from the perspective of an end-user, and that is something that as far as I can tell, the designers of transportdirect.info haven't done.
For those of you outside the UK, transportdirect.info is a government run public transport and journey planning site. You put in the details of where you are, and where you want to go, add the details of timing, and in theory the site then quickly shows you how to make that journey on busses, trains, trams, ferries and planes (but only lifeline air services in the Northern and Western Isles).
Unfortunately it doesn't quite manage that. First, entering something simple like "Manchester Piccadilly" in the destination box, then selecting "Station" in the type box will lead to the user having to go through an extra step to tell the system that they really did mean Manchester Piccadilly train station. This is something that really shouldn't be necessary. Why can't the system pick up the fact that the user has entered the name of the main train station in Manchester and also selected that the place they are looking for is a train station, and put the two together. It could even do this on the fly and use AJAX to prompt the user to refine their selection without reloading the whole page.
When you do manage to enter the details of your journey, the system throws up the most useless results page. Any change in what is displayed requires a full page reload. Have the designers never heard of Web 2.0? If you want to see a map of the journey, the site still uses static images for the maps, meaning that if the zoom level or place that the map is centred on are not quite perfect, then you have to, yes you guessed it, reload the page! This might not have bothered me a couple of years ago, but I am used to using Google Maps so much that when I have to go back to these old style maps, the user experience can seem infuriating.
I really can't see why the site can't be redesigned to make use of modern Web technology. It could be so much better, and could make it so much easier to use public transport in Britain. I am constantly envious of the Google Transit system that is in place for cities like Portland, or Torino. As for my attempted bus journey, I gave up on transportdirect.info and tried the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive website, where I had to download a five megabyte PDF map of the whole south of Manchester in order to find that the number 23 would probably take me to where I wanted to go.
Seriously, if you're thinking of making a major public service website, make it good. Don't design it for wowing a first time net user in a local library, design it to be functional as an quick, efficient every day tool for everyone.
Gently Down the Stream
03/01/08 00:25 Filed in: TV
I’ve written before about on demand TV services over
the Internet, but since then my tech set-up has changed
a little, as has the technology itself. Starting with
the biggest change, the launch of BBC iPlayer streaming video. It is
now possible to watch quite a reasonable number of
BBC programmes online in decent quality (not
anywhere near DVD, but certainly watchable), on
both Macs and PCs. Read
More...
New Designs All Over
15/12/07 23:37
If you have ever visited this site before, then you'll
probably have noticed the new design on the home page.
I got fed up with just doing little edits to other
people's themes, so I did a big edit to one of the
themes which came with the CMS which I use. The
underlying code is all from the original theme, but I
have changed most of the graphics and quite a bit of
the CSS, along with a little HTML. Mainly the CSS
needed to be modified to accept the new sizes for the
graphics, and the HTML edit was to slightly finesse the
fShare implementation. As well as the home page, all
the other pages have either had this theme added, or in
the case of the politics section, a slightly modified
version of it. The only area which hasn't had a
significant change is Code is Simple, though it has had
a little modification to the spacing of some of the
graphics, and a new background.
Considering that I spent several hours making it, it is fairly unsurprising that I'm happy with the end result. There are a few little faults here and there, but I put a discrete 'beta' in the header to take care of those!
Considering that I spent several hours making it, it is fairly unsurprising that I'm happy with the end result. There are a few little faults here and there, but I put a discrete 'beta' in the header to take care of those!
Are we Connected to the Code?
There is a reason that this blog is titled "Code is
Simple". I originally planned to create a set of
tutorials in writing Web pages in HTML. For various
reasons, that project has ended up being put on hold
for a while, but I still wanted to create something to
do with technology, and I already owned the domain
name, and so the Code is Simple blog was born. But in
case you hadn't noticed, this site is a little bit
flashy. In fact I have only written a few lines of HTML
in the development of the site. The rest has been
created for me by RapidWeaver. Read
More...
The New Newton
12/10/07 12:56 Filed in: Apple
The Newton is dead, long live the iPod Touch! With the
launch of the new iPod Touch, and the recent
introduction of the iPhone, I can't help but wonder if
Apple are creating a new type of Newton in all but
name.
Several years ago, I heard about a new generation of PDA which would not have any applications on it. Instead, it would rely on having a constant Internet connection, and access Web based applications. It has taken a little while, but we are now in a situation where access to Wi-Fi networks is common enough for this to be a realistic possibility. For example, at home I have a Wi-Fi network, there is also a free Wi-Fi network in the cafe I often go to, while in the library and the refectories at university, I can log on the the academic network through Wi-Fi. Read More...
Several years ago, I heard about a new generation of PDA which would not have any applications on it. Instead, it would rely on having a constant Internet connection, and access Web based applications. It has taken a little while, but we are now in a situation where access to Wi-Fi networks is common enough for this to be a realistic possibility. For example, at home I have a Wi-Fi network, there is also a free Wi-Fi network in the cafe I often go to, while in the library and the refectories at university, I can log on the the academic network through Wi-Fi. Read More...
On Demand TV (2 Hour Delay Included Free of Charge)
06/09/07 22:05 Filed in: TV
I have been away from the UK for a little while, so I missed the launch of TV shows on the iTunes Store, but I have to say that I have wasted no time in getting acquainted with the new offering.
Read More...