Hey! Don’t you drive?
Don’t you have a car? Are you tired of walking twenty or more minutes between
places? Are you worried about missing a bus or a light rail? Where are you
going to ask questions regarding your commuting problems? Don’t worry!
ValleyMetro.org will take care of all these things for you. No, I am not an advocant
of ValleyMetro.org but the above sentences would fit perfectly as the lead
lines in a thirty seconds commercial, or a fair but rather long slogan. Talking
about slogan, ValleyMetro.org doesn’t seem to have slogan, yet! Maybe it
doesn’t even need a slogan but that is just one of the things I look for when I
evaluate a website. At first glance, ValleyMetro.org has the criteria of
a credible and resourceful public service based website it is not flawless.
This website has three
main tabs, “Planning Your Trip”, “Paying Your Fare”, and “Getting On Board”, to
fulfill your needs. My favorite part of ValleyMetro.org is its “Planning Your
Trip”. Most people know that getting late on work or an important meeting would
lead to a terrible consequences. However, it is hard to always keep on time if
you are taking public transportation. For example, you might estimate wrong
about the time that would take on bus or light rail, and might take the wrong
bus. With the system of "Trip Planner", we can avoid most of those situations.
"Trip Planner" can help you to plan the trip base on the departure,
the destination, and the time you want to depart after or arrive by. You can
also choose the transportation if needed. The best part after this is that it
tells you the full fare of this trip and the total trip time. An interesting
part also include in "Trip Planner" is that it will tell you how much
CO2 you save for this trip. How green that ValleyMetro.org shows on
the internet! These are the parts that website of Google Maps will not provide.
Tips About Schedules that under "Route Schedules & Maps" section
is very helpful. One tip that I most agreed about is always five minutes
earlier to the stop. Sometimes, transports will get the stop little earlier, so
that some people will miss them if these people arrive “on time”. If we get
there five minutes earlier, it’s impossible to miss our transport, and maybe we
can take the prior transport.
There is a little issue
with regard to usability is the "purchase fair online" section, which
is under the “Fare Options” of the “Paying Your Fare” tab. It is good practice
to have a section that addresses different methods to purchase fares, but there
is still room for improvement. It is extremely inconvenient to browse through
the contents in this tab. It is even harder to choose the right transit fare
that you are looking for. The overwhelming information in this section needs to
be deducted because users click on this tab to pay, not to read a glossary,
combine with the fact you’re not going to receive the fair right away when you
make an online purchase dismantle the usability of this section. This section
is nowhere near to being flawless; thus it is understandable that the web
designers place valleymetro.org’ Achilles’ heel at the bottom of the Spotlight
column. This section is definitely not appealing to people without a technical
background.
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| Place to stop bike on the metro light rail |
While ValleyMetro.org is
the website of public transportations, it definitely introduces every
transport's schedule, the stops, safety warning, security, and accessibility,
etc. Under the tab of "Getting On Board", there are many detailed
information about Valley Metro. Mostly, the details separate into two parts,
bus and light rail. This makes it easier and more efficient to find the information.
The idea of giving detailed information on every transit center is brilliant
and kind. People can know which transport they will take a ride with to their
destination. If a college student wants to rent a house that near to a transit
center, then he/she can look on this, too. The contents of passengers with
disabilities are respectful and helpful. Everything on "Getting On
Board" is wonderful except one little place. On the section of
"Bike", it asks to load your bike vertically on light rail. If a girl
is taking a heavy bike to the light rail, it is likely impossible for her to
load her bike. To take your bike on light rail is hard for most girls. However,
it is better than no bikes on light rail, though it needs some work to bring
them on.
It is fairly easy
to navigate because all of the tabs
are placed properly on the top. The only thing that
could be changed with the links is the size and color of them. They are
too small thus harder to read, and white letters on dark purple background
isn’t easy on the eyes. Perhaps, the letters in the tabs should be bold
and enlarged or at least cut back on the amount of crimson purple in the
background. However, the tabs are consistent and there are little sub tabs as
the mouse pointer hovers above the main tab. It’s such a nice concept because
it minimizes the content of the main page. The colors are a little
tasteless, purple is a fine color but it is not an excellent choice to be the
theme for the website. Perhaps I have a grudge on purple but after a moment
of consideration, it’s not the purple that makes the website look bland, it’s
the amount of purple that makes the websites tedious. Even the logo of
valley metro in the top right corner is wears a shade of purple with the
exception of a tint of highlighted mint green but even it fails to energize the
moody purple theme. They should blend in more colors to the logo up at the top
because it kind of merges in with the color theme. As you scroll all the way
down to the bottle of the page, you find tons of content links; if you don’t
have time to go through the visually elaborated but jumbled contents on top
then just keep scrolling, all the links down south are tiny and hard to read
but they sum up all the information that you will likely need.
Valley metro is a
household name thus users are not hesitant to give credit card, and personal
details and there is a term of contract that you have to go through before any
transaction is made. I’m fine with the idea of giving up my personal
information but valleymetro.com takes it a little over the top. And besides,
there is no option for me to save up my personal information or credit card
number thus I have to re-enter them every time I make a purchase. Being such
good sport I read through the contract term and to my surprise, fairs are not
downloadable or available to print, and it takes 5 to 7 days for them to
deliver the fares but it takes an instant to purchase fares via various sale
locations in the valley. Ask yourself, what is the point of purchasing fairs via
this method anyway? It would be great if the fairs are in the
downloadable barcode form, it would be a lot more convenient for bus and train
riders. In short, there needs to be greater emphasis placed on the usability of
this section.
The load time of the
page is quite fast, standard internet connection is enough to makes the website
loads smoothly. ValleyMetro.org loads especially well on Google Chrome, and to
no one’s surprise, the website is not as smooth on Internet Explorer. The
transition slideshow within the news section is a little awkward. It doesn’t go
from one slide to another if you don’t hover the mouse pointer pass the
boundary of this section or it won’t jump to the next slide. There are no typos
or broken links, but some links don’t match up to the professional layout of
the main page.
I still think this
website needs a slogan. A slogan would energize the interface or at least draw
the attention of the viewers. Usually, no one would expect to be amazed by a
public service website but this website doesn’t have that “it” factor. Content
wise, the website provides all the needed information but it’s the dull look
that discourages people to visit it a second time, unless your life depends on
knowing the bus and light rail’s schedule. Overall, ValleyMetro.org is a good
website but not good enough to be bookmarked.
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| Metro Light Rail (Left) & Bus (Right) |
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