(08-31-2019, 09:54 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:

(08-30-2019, 05:09 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: First of all, nobody is talking about fault, this isn't about fault.  And if you believe your statement is "unarguable" then there's no point in discussing.

This isn't a chainsaw, a chainsaw is a dangerous piece of equipment that people expect to need training of some kind to use. This is a transit farebox, something everyone should be able to use with no prior training.

If I have a door which 1% of people walk into, that's a failure, 1% is a lot on a high frequency system. And you're right, we're way way below 99% success. Like I said the statement holds, but it needs context...

The “unarguable” bit is only the idea that sometimes it needs to be the users who take responsibility for understanding the design, rather than the designer who has to take responsibility for understanding the users. I agree that, in general, we have a tendency to blame users for misunderstanding the design when instead we should be trying to improve the design. On the other hand, I think there is a tendency nowadays in computer interfaces to prioritize new users over people who use systems regularly.

Of course, in the specific case of a transit tap machine, if a significant number of riders are having a problem the fix is probably changing the design. As others have pointed out, the machine needs to be designed so that the action that it appears is needed is the same as the action that is actually needed. On the other hand, even here we need to be careful. I suspect that an “insert card” design like an ATM would have an extremely low rate of people misunderstanding it (especially if it accepted the card in any orientation, unlike an ATM); but it would be unacceptably slow in a busy station. So any design changes have to stick with the contactless operation.

I suspect nobody really thinks that user confusion is always something that needs to be dealt with by changing the design. If they do really for real think that, however, then it gets awfully hard to have a rational discussion about when design changes are needed and when user training is needed. It’s like trying to have a rational discussion about road pricing with somebody who can’t understand that we currently do not have road pricing, or a discussion about congestion with somebody who thinks that streetcars and bicycles block traffic but somehow cars don’t.

(08-31-2019, 01:11 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: This is the point though, we already have similar interfaces, if someone uses one wrong, and another one right, there is a difference in design between those two systems which is causing users to make a mistake on one.

(08-31-2019, 01:11 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I actually didn't see any mistakes on buses, and people already have been using tap cards on payment terminals.

(08-31-2019, 01:11 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Honestly, I've been using the system for a while, and I find it physically awkward to use right, it's so poorly designed, it cannot be used with one hand (before the card holder) and the onscreen instructions actually lead to improper use, and worse, the error message that comes from improper use does not in any way help the user solve the problem.

(08-31-2019, 05:26 PM)Bytor Wrote:

(08-31-2019, 01:11 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: This is the point though, we already have similar interfaces, if someone uses one wrong, and another one right, there is a difference in design between those two systems which is causing users to make a mistake on one.

The place to tap the card on the kiosk is right be side the screen and highly visible. It has the *exact* same image on it as where you put the card on the farebox in the busses to tap. The three people I helped that day clearly understood what to tap on the touchscreen and that it was telling them to present their card, and the same goes for most of the people I have watched over the past 2 months. They also understood where they needed to present the card as they were not trying to tap elsewhere other than the sensor. The part of the process that is failing is only the part of holding the card to the sensor for the "tap" action. So which design element, pray tell, is making these users not lay their fare card right on that spot the same way for kiosks as they are able to do for the fareboxes?

(08-31-2019, 01:11 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I actually didn't see any mistakes on buses, and people already have been using tap cards on payment terminals.

Then you were not watching. Every other person at the start, it seemed, had to be told to lay the card flat for the tap.

(08-31-2019, 01:11 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Honestly, I've been using the system for a while, and I find it physically awkward to use right, it's so poorly designed, it cannot be used with one hand (before the card holder) and the onscreen instructions actually lead to improper use, and worse, the error message that comes from improper use does not in any way help the user solve the problem.

I can use it easily with one hand to pay for a trip. I hold my phone in my right hand, extend my forefinger, tap the two buttons necessary to validate my monthly pass, and then plunk my phone down on the sensor with the pocket holding my card face down. "Beep!" I'm done.

(08-31-2019, 01:23 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: And I do really think that usage errors are always the fault of design (within the "in context" caveat I described at the beginning). It is the job of a designer to build a system which is easy to use.  That is not to say that there aren't other tradeoffs in design, absolutes are rarely useful, and extremely infrequent errors may not be worth the effort of overcoming, but it is a principle of design that systems should be easy to use, errors should be hard to make and failing that easy an intuitive to recover from. I do highly recommend the book by Don Norman: http://www.nixdell.com/classes/HCI-and-Design-Spring-2017/The-Design-of-Everyday-Things-Revised-and-Expanded-Edition.pdf

(09-01-2019, 10:56 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:

(08-31-2019, 01:23 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: And I do really think that usage errors are always the fault of design (within the "in context" caveat I described at the beginning). It is the job of a designer to build a system which is easy to use.  That is not to say that there aren't other tradeoffs in design, absolutes are rarely useful, and extremely infrequent errors may not be worth the effort of overcoming, but it is a principle of design that systems should be easy to use, errors should be hard to make and failing that easy an intuitive to recover from. I do highly recommend the book by Don Norman: http://www.nixdell.com/classes/HCI-and-Design-Spring-2017/The-Design-of-Everyday-Things-Revised-and-Expanded-Edition.pdf

I think we basically actually agree, it’s just a matter of emphasis and wording.

For the record I agree that the design of a fare tap machine needs to be adjusted until substantially all the people who encounter it have little to no trouble using it the first time, and no trouble on subsequent times. If this requirement isn’t met, there is a problem, possibly a subtle one, with the affordance offered by the device.

I just don’t think it’s appropriate to “always” blame the design. But it’s not clear to me that even you think that, since in the same sentence that you say “usage errors are always the fault of design” you immediately add a parenthetical about context, and then later in the paragraph you refer to tradeoffs.

I’m sensitive to this issue because I’ve seen concerns about people having trouble using something spiral out of control. Way back I was a lab instructor for a computer science course with an absolutely enormous series of lab exercises. As far as I could tell, the reason the exercises were so enormous was because every time a student had any sort of confusion at all, a sentence or paragraph was added to try to head that off. The result was an unreasonably large document whose size was the biggest barrier to convenient use. They would have been much better leaving out most of the detailed explanations and just accepting that the lab instructors would sometimes need to answer questions from students (which was the case anyway, because people couldn’t find the information they needed in the oversized document). In other areas, I’ve seen systems lose features that are important for advanced use because of fears that people new to the system would be confused by the extra features. But it’s not reasonable to be confused by the presence of a single button labelled “Advanced…”.

Returning to the issue of the transit terminal, let’s hope they adjust the design so that it works better for riders. Although I guess all we can really expect at this point is signage, which isn’t the ideal way of resolving issues of this nature.

(08-31-2019, 06:24 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: So first of all, this story is told terribly, you wait till the end to explain your card is in your phone pocket, second, you need not mention your phone at all, that isn't relevant in any way to the story, it's just where you store your card.  Third of all, I have no idea what you're explaining, but here's the experience I have, as a right handed person (as most are).

(08-31-2019, 06:24 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I normally operate the touch screen with my right hand, it then tells me to tap my card, I pull out my card from my wallet and go to tap, oh, I get an error, because it tried to read my card as it approached the tap sensor (this is a common error that should not occur, there is no technical reason the reader cannot retry a few times, the error message is also vague and useless, fortunately for me, I happen to know that this error actually means and how to fix it--allthough I must restart the process from the beginning). Now I recall that I must hold my card pressed on the reader the whole time for the whole transaction to happen reliably, (I just know that because I've seen it elsewhere not because anything about the transaction or device interface has led me to understand this), I then hold it with my right hand, I must now operate the device with my left hand, then I must pay with my credit card, which I must retrieve from my wallet with one hand, then I try to switch hands, woops, my credit card confuses the tap terminal. On the third time, I managed to get it.

(08-31-2019, 06:24 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I've seen others make different mistakes yes, just because the tap card image is the same does not mean it is intuitive...the image is small, and the rest of the device looks very different.

(08-31-2019, 06:24 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I'm very serious here, the system is garbage, the designer is bad at what they do...objectively.  Can we stop pretending otherwise?

(09-01-2019, 12:50 PM)Bytor Wrote:

(08-31-2019, 06:24 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: So first of all, this story is told terribly, you wait till the end to explain your card is in your phone pocket, second, you need not mention your phone at all, that isn't relevant in any way to the story, it's just where you store your card.  Third of all, I have no idea what you're explaining, but here's the experience I have, as a right handed person (as most are).

Nothing changes materially if I take my card out of the pocket on my phone and hold that instead of my phone. I can still do it one-handed, contrary to your claim that this cannot be done.

(08-31-2019, 06:24 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I normally operate the touch screen with my right hand, it then tells me to tap my card, I pull out my card from my wallet and go to tap, oh, I get an error, because it tried to read my card as it approached the tap sensor (this is a common error that should not occur, there is no technical reason the reader cannot retry a few times, the error message is also vague and useless, fortunately for me, I happen to know that this error actually means and how to fix it--allthough I must restart the process from the beginning). Now I recall that I must hold my card pressed on the reader the whole time for the whole transaction to happen reliably, (I just know that because I've seen it elsewhere not because anything about the transaction or device interface has led me to understand this), I then hold it with my right hand, I must now operate the device with my left hand, then I must pay with my credit card, which I must retrieve from my wallet with one hand, then I try to switch hands, woops, my credit card confuses the tap terminal. On the third time, I managed to get it.

Some processes with the kiosk are difficult if you've approved without having your wallet and have to go fumbling for it. I don't know about you, but with my phone in my left hand, I can tap the buttons, pull out my fare card, tap that, replace it, pull out my credit card to pay for some stored value, then tap my fare card again, without having to redo anything. But sure, it could be redesign a bit to make it a little easier.

But not all processes are difficult.

(08-31-2019, 06:24 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I've seen others make different mistakes yes, just because the tap card image is the same does not mean it is intuitive...the image is small, and the rest of the device looks very different.

The image is the same as on the bus. Why does that not tell the user to do it the same way as on the bus? UI design in computers is predicated on the idea of elements looking the same being used/activated in the same manner regardless of individual context. You seem to be arguing that if you move the elements of a dialog box around that a user is going magically forget how to click a button or drag a slider.

(08-31-2019, 06:24 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I'm very serious here, the system is garbage, the designer is bad at what they do...objectively.  Can we stop pretending otherwise?

I started this off describing a *specific* common situation that are probably the bulk of the transactions with the kiosk by most riders - validating with your already loaded card. Yet you go haring off on some wild goose chase over something I wasn't even talking about.

So no, I'm not going to agree with you.

(09-01-2019, 02:50 PM)embe Wrote: ** realizing I need to get out more **

(09-01-2019, 04:08 PM)jason897 Wrote: Maybe stuff about the fare payment system needs to be split into a separate thread now

(09-02-2019, 11:15 AM)ac3r Wrote: Am I in the minority in thinking this is not that hard to use? The payment systems might take a few minutes the first time, but it's not much harder than an ATM. And to pay your fare, you tap the card and ideally wait to check the screen to see what it says, just like an Interac machine. Just about every person in the country knows how those work.

The only thing that has ever caught me off guard was while adding funds at the machine. It is most likely my own fault for not clearly reading the message that tells you once you've paid you need to tap your card again to complete the transaction and add the funds. I forgot to do this and of course my funds weren't added, until I went down to the new customer service centre to get it fixed up. So in this case, the card holders show their usefulness.

But everything else? It just takes pushing some buttons and reading what is on the screen. If opening the doors of the train is even confusing to people (I don't know why, because to exit the bus you interact with the door), I blame the user for not having common sense, not the design. And so I can only blame the user for not having patience to read the screens when paying for products or paying a fare.

(09-02-2019, 12:47 AM)jeffster Wrote:

(09-01-2019, 04:08 PM)jason897 Wrote: Maybe stuff about the fare payment system needs to be split into a separate thread now

Not a bad idea.

I think the one reality is that you'll always need to show people how to use these systems. If people are having a hard time now, they'll have a hard time in the future (simply because you'll have different people trying it for the first time).

The system in Toronto has changed a lot. I had to do some learning when navigating their system, and in particular, their LRT. My first usage I went maybe 3 stops then got off as I had no way to pay (there were no payment system at the stop, and while their was a kiosk on the LRT itself, it only took coin currency, tokens, Presto or transfers). My second time using the LRT, I was more prepared as I had pre-purchased a bunch of tokens, then some young woman came onto the LRT, equally confused as I was the first time on how to use it - with no change, no token, no transfer and no Presto. I gave her a token, and explained that she needed to also request a transfer from the kiosk.

I also had to re-learn their subway system as well. It used to be you could pay cash fair a most (if not all) stations and get change back, or at least token, but most of it is electronic now. If, for example, going to their 407 Station, one really should purchase a Presto 2-trip pass (or whatever you need). You can get that with your credit card at the station before going down to the subway, and you tap your Presto to be allowed through (which debits the Presto slip).

I have a good grip on how to use the system in Toronto now. But for first time users, these systems, which are all different for some reason, will likely always present a challenge. And to be honest, I found our system a little bit easier to use (when working correctly).