Bur first, we can find Nettlestone. It's on the network map.
Why not make the map "clickable", then an innocent touist might be able to find the service they needed. Click on the "8" and up comes the timetable; surely easier that lots of interminable clicking and scrolling. See "What a Wonderful Web-site? [1]" (read again).
The conclusion is that the web site is designed to impress web site designers rather than deliver the important core information sought by the user. But, assuming you are looking at the wider delights of Southern Vectis, what else can you enjoy?
There is a section for the two open top routes ...
... the semi-open topper ...
... and the "round half the island" tour.
Of course, thanks to a "clarification of policy", none of these is available free to old codgers, despite the fact that all of them provide the only public transport link to some parts of the Island. Indeed in peak summer the new-look coaster ...
will offer a two hour frequency throughout the main part of the day. And fbb thinks he observed an on-line panel saying that it takes bikes, but he couldn't find it again!
Whilst it's good to see a better service along the Island's spectacular Southern Coast ...
... it is disappointing for Island Tourism (ultimately the Council's responsibility) to exclude free travel for a large percentage of visitors. How many simply miss out because they are unwilling to pay even the half price (£5) oap day ticket? But it does have a good map ...
...with a full-size downloadable version available (here)
But the Coaster page, as with many other pages, is spoiled by the "dottiness".
This system of "moving" dots tell us (except that it is not explained anywhere) that we will experience a scrolling series of pictures and text. Maybe fbb's reaction time is slowing in his dotage, but there never seems to be enough time to read each chunk before the software moves on. Even if you click on a dot to see a missed picture, it doesn't stay there; it disappears equally fast.
Why do we have to suffer this? Why not shown thumbnails of the key features and allow the user to chose what he or she may wish to read about.
The same high-speed graphics system is used to "enhance" information for each ordinary bus route. Very helpful for those skilled in "speed ... oh, it's gone!
Dotty!
Next Bus Blog : Saturday 29th June
They are called "sliders", and have not been properly implemented, due to their only navigation just being those tiny dots, plus they don't link to any relevant pages related to each slide, so they are mostly a waste of space.
ReplyDeleteBut that is not the worst thing about the site at all...
For a responsive site, they have got the grid structure completely wrong, as in a narrow window (e.g a phone), the sidebar content is displayed BEFORE the main page content, rather than afterwards.
As an example of why this is so wrong, the Island Breezers sub-site displays the pretty sliders that could usefully link to each Breezer page but don't, followed by all the sidebar stuff, followed only at the very end by the Breezer sections with the text links to the Breezer pages.
So consequently I am very tempted to downgrade my opinion of the new site from "fair" to "atrocious"...
A slightly different view of this, on today's Omnibuses Blog
ReplyDeleteI am bemused at FBB's lecture on how to create a simple website when he chooses to publish his ramblings using blogspot, one simple post here creating 1801 lines of HTML code for my browser to crunch through. Glass houses and stones perhaps? Oh and the Havant website is hideous, the world wide web has somewhat moved on in terms of design since 1998!
ReplyDeleteAnd moved on to the point of obscuring the information it should be highlighting - exactly the point. Hideous but speedily effective at delivering timetable information. Anonymous (above) ha clearly forgotten what the internet is for!
ReplyDeleteI use blogger because I can, not because I would choose it. It is full of program failings and hugely frustrating to try to use. Is there a simpler "blog" builder? If there is, I will use it!
ReplyDeleteSpeedy doesn't need to be hideous and hideous doesn't mean speedy!
ReplyDeleteI haven't forgotten the internet is there to share information, I have however remembered the internet has evolved in the past 15 years, something a few appear to have forgotten, doh!
The internet has evolved not only in terms of design and coding but also in the speed the information is delivered to the end user, I remembering waiting an age for simple pages to download using a 34k modem in 1998, in 2013 pages load almost instantaneously using a cable broadband line and wifi means I can surf anywhere in the home, even in the garden, even on some buses!
To whichever Anonymous it use to be refereed to as the "Information Super Highway", these days its more like the "Designer's Portfolio Hedgerow"
ReplyDeleteCPC Transport Training is an essential part of becoming a qualified coach driver.
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