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MTA website finally getting makeover, to be unveiled Wednesday

Matt91

By Matt91,
in New York City Subway

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Matt91

Matt91

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/nyregion/11mta.html

 

M.T.A. to Unveil a Makeover of Its Web Home

 

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

New York City’s mass transit network has become cleaner, faster and more reliable in the past decade. But its Web site remained stuck in the past.

 

A hodgepodge of drop-down menus and informational boxes, the site (http://www.mta.info) often seemed as garbled as a conductor’s service announcement. On Sunday, a picture noting the Throgs Neck Bridge’s birthday was prominently displayed, while basics like fares and directions were buried in a design carried over from the turn of the century.

 

But on Wednesday, the more than a million riders who visit the page each month will be met with a cleaner, less cluttered production, the site’s first significant redesign since 2003.

 

Drop-down menus are out. Maps, fares and directions are accessible after a click or two. And real-time updates on delays and service changes might prevent that trip to Brooklyn from becoming an all-night odyssey.

 

“We’re not cutting-edge; let’s not kid ourselves. But we’re getting closer,” said Jay H. Walder, the new chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who said he ordered a revamp last fall on his first day on the job.

 

“The idea here was not to break new ground; the point was to provide good service to our customers,” Mr. Walder said in a phone interview. “Customers want to be able to find out how to get from point A to point B; they want to see right away whether or not the train or the buses they’re looking to get on are on schedule.”

 

A working version of the new site, which was designed in-house, was reviewed by The New York Times.

 

Real-time information on delays and service interruptions — difficult if not impossible to find on the current site — is the first thing that catches a viewer’s eye. A widget on the home page compiles continually updated service status for every subway, bus and commuter rail line in the region, along with nine of the bridges and tunnels operated by the authority.

 

The information is color coded (red for delays, green for good service) and divided into categories (subway, rail, bus) by tabs, similar to a Web browser that allows users to toggle through multiple pages. At a glance, readers get a sense of whether the F train back to Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, for instance, will be smooth sailing or an underground maelstrom.

 

Also prominent on the new home page is a feature called “Plan & Ride,” which lets users find door-to-door directions across several modes of transportation. The feature is similar to HopStop.com and the authority’s own TripPlanner application, although entering a search sends users directly to a Google Maps page.

 

“When you open up a Web site, you say, ‘Where do I want to go?’*” Mr. Walder said. “You could not find an airline or a car rental company or anything like that that doesn’t have the what-do-you-want-to-do feature right at the front of their page.”

 

The authority already licenses its scheduling data to Google, and Mr. Walder said that it made more financial sense to take advantage of an already popular outside service rather than to continue investing in a proprietary application.

 

The new site will also make it easier for outside software designers to get free access to system timetables and routes.

 

Except for Amtrak, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority receives more Web traffic than any other public transit agency in the country. At its peak, in November 2008, the authority’s Web site had more than 1.8 million unique visitors and about 25 million page views, according to data compiled by the Nielsen Company.

 

In November 2009, the site had about 1.1 million visitors, more than Greyhound or Avis.

 

Not all of the site’s 9,000 pages will be updated when the new version goes online. Officials described the new site as a work in progress, and mobile tie-ins for the BlackBerry and the iPhone are in development.

 

Web designers who were asked to compare both versions of the site said that the overhaul was an improvement, but that the authority still had a ways to go.

 

“The new one is much calmer, a more calmed-down, quiet site — it seems less busy; it seems less confused,” said Jakob Nielsen, a founder of the Nielsen Norman Group in Fremont, Calif., who specializes in the usability of Web pages.

 

But, he added, “that doesn’t mean it’s better.” Mr. Nielsen was concerned that the Plan & Ride box, which prompts users to enter “from” and “to” locations, provides little guidance: Should users feel comfortable entering an address, an intersection, a landmark?

 

Tina Roth Eisenberg, the founder of Swissmiss, a Web design studio in Brooklyn, was impressed by the real-time service updates. But the aesthetic, she said, remained dated.

 

“It’s definitely an improvement from where they were, but to be honest, it screams ‘in-house’ to me,” said Ms. Eisenberg, whose clients include the Museum of Modern Art and the Food Network. “It could have been done a little sexier.”

 

 

 

It's about time:tup:

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MacAlert

MacAlert

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They updated the mobile version this morning but reverted back to the old page. The new mobile page looked off. Worst part of the new mobile site, there is no service alert link on the main page, you have to click through multiple links to get to it.

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w8Hou

w8Hou

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New site looks much more clean and organized, but apprently the old (current 2003-2010) one looks better, :P.

 

Wrong, MTA hasn't even made a major update since mid 1990's with the website address: http://mta.nyc.ny.us/

 

 

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This MTA new website (upload by me from NYT)

2r4k1a1.jpg
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Matt91

Matt91

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They updated the mobile version this morning but reverted back to the old page. The new mobile page looked off. Worst part of the new mobile site, there is no service alert link on the main page, you have to click through multiple links to get to it.

 

hopefully they fix that. And they only overhauled the start page, all the others were the same for the mobile. IMO the new sites will be easier to navigate and find information, especially with regard to the service status :cool:

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MacAlert

MacAlert

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hopefully they fix that. And they only overhauled the start page, all the others were the same for the mobile. IMO the new sites will be easier to navigate and find information, especially with regard to the service status :cool:

Most pages were different. I guess they implemented the test code by mistake or they were still working on it.

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Novabus 5000

Novabus 5000

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Wrong, MTA hasn't even made a major update since mid 1990's with the website address: http://mta.nyc.ny.us/

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This MTA new website (upload by me from NYT)

 

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Lennyj17

Lennyj17

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1st order of business...Combine the NYCT and MTA bus schedule locations.....Everything else about the 2 agencies are combined on the website just combine the schedule locations....I really wish they could get rid of MTA bus and NYCT and just make it all MTA NYC Bus nobody knows the difference and probably doesnt even understand why the schedules are in 2 different locations.

 

But I know it has to do with the Unions.

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MAA89

MAA89

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It is past noon on Wednesday and there is still no sign of an update.

 

In any case, the (MTA)'s trip planner is a joke; I always use Google Maps or Hopstop instead. I do not think any number of cosmetic improvements will make me go back to mta.info.

 

The service advisory section also often misses important GOs, which is something that needs to be fixed.

 

Mostly, though, the rider notification system is awful. I signed up for email service advisory alerts once; all I got was a bunch of useless emails regarding service delays due to signal problems/sick customers. It never sent me one useful email about weekend GOs, and from my experience, the vast majority of incidents were unreported (I had been on several trains delayed due to sick passengers/signal problems/track work, etc, and none of these were ever reflected in email alerts).

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LRG

LRG

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It is past noon on Wednesday and there is still no sign of an update.

 

In any case, the (MTA)'s trip planner is a joke; I always use Google Maps or Hopstop instead. I do not think any number of cosmetic improvements will make me go back to mta.info.

 

The service advisory section also often misses important GOs, which is something that needs to be fixed.

 

Mostly, though, the rider notification system is awful. I signed up for email service advisory alerts once; all I got was a bunch of useless emails regarding service delays due to signal problems/sick customers. It never sent me one useful email about weekend GOs, and from my experience, the vast majority of incidents were unreported (I had been on several trains delayed due to sick passengers/signal problems/track work, etc, and none of these were ever reflected in email alerts).

 

The only thing trip planner is good for is to show people what trains leave a certain station at a certain time but sometimes it doesn't give you the route you want to take. For example, you take an (E) train at WTC but you want the ones that directly go to 179th Street. Only two (E) trains during the evening rush head to 179th, and only one heads from 179th in the a.m.

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