Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence
I remind myself of this saying whenever I come across a new and surprising example of poor user interface design. With this is mind I'd like you to consider this ticket machine at Cambridge North station.
You reach this screen by choosing to travel to London. For those of you who make this journey regularly, you'll know that there are two routes into London from Cambridge. One ending up at Kings Cross. The other at Liverpool Street.
Since Cambridge North station opened I've travelled from there to London around twenty times. I've also bought the wrong ticket on two occasions. The first time I put it down to careless on my part. The second time I realised it wasn't me but the ticket machine. As I was buying a second ticket from the ticket inspector on board the train I asked him if this was a common occurrence. It turns out it is. It keeps happening. Why?
Let's look at the offending screen again.
The problem occurs if you want to travel to Kings Cross. Which button do you select? First up you've got to decide which of Super Off-Peak, Off-Peak or Anytime applies to your journey. Also, you're left wondering why the prominent green Super-Off Peak option only exists on the left-hand side. You then are probably asking yourself why there are two columns at all.
Hmmmm. "Valid on Greater Anglia trains only" is written above the left column. But what does that mean? I want to get to London. I do not want to learn about the different train operators. There's an information button next to it. Perhaps that will help?
Oh. Thanks.
This is all assuming you have had your coffee, or are awake enough, such that you haven't just mashed the first likely looking option that appears in front of you!
What's going on here? How did we end up with this mockery of good user experience? We'll probably never know. However, I have worked in the software industry on and off for over a decade. I have a lot of empathy for the challenges the developers, designers and managers face when putting together something as complex as the ticketing system for a whole country. My experience is that we end up with poor designs such as this when the organisation as a whole does not value user experience. And, particularly, does not value thinking about solving problems from the users' perspective.
The biggest tell for me is the way the train operator's name is displayed to the user. It's a classic example of technical jargon leaking out of a system. It is technically correct.
But it is also actively harming the chances of someone buying the correct ticket.
We can do better. I'm a fan of some of the ideas contained in the theory of Jobs to be Done, but you don't need a fancy framework to do better. As an industry, we need to value our users and customers more. Customers are people too.
Originally posted at https://www.mulberryhousesoftware.com/blog/2018/1/16/ticket-machines-and-ux
I checked the ticket machines at Cambridge North last week and noticed that I no longer got to choose between the two options. Can anyone else confirm this? Photographic evidence? :)
Ok hands up for being incompetent and not realising til now ☝️ went to London 2 weeks ago and looks like it was with the wrong ticket. So is there no off-peak to Kings Cross? 😕
So what do you propose is the solution? Personally I always use the trainline.com app to buy in advance. Saves time, money and takes 30 seconds to get tickets on the day if not using them digitally. If what you are using is not likely to change, maybe you could shift the way you approach the situation and adapt. The options are there.
I travelled on one occasion from Cam North to London on the w/e. My app suggested that the price is £7-8 cheaper. I contacted customer service - yes you can speak to an alive person straight away directly from the mashine and they advised that this price is only available on a pre book and if I do it online now, it will take 2 hours to process. I risked it. It took few seconds to pay (via paypal and then you use the credit card linked to it to get the tickets out of the mashine) and get the confirmation via email in another 2-5 min. Then you just have to use your booking ref number and print the tickets. Easy. App is not as confused as the mashine and it's cheaper.
I too get trains from Cambridge. You forgot to point out the printed A4 pages they taped to the machines trying to explain what you should select to get to Kings Cross. And the 8 button presses it takes to buy by far the most common journey from Cambridge (it was 4 before they upgraded the machines last year). And the printing screen that shows details of three tickets it’s printing while secretly printing a fourth that is only evidenced by the colour of the ticket pickup drawer...