ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[chutten]

The real problem is that we don't know what the design intent is!!  We can't criticize the design until we understand that.

I don’t need to know the design intent to know that it does not take into account obvious needs of people using the area.

This reminds me of a similar situation with our student registration system at the University of Waterloo. I once commented unfavourably on the way the menu structure worked for students, which involved multiple levels of single-choice menus. Somebody said that basically it had to be that way because some users have more options in those menus. Uh, nope, the interface for students is inconvenient and doesn’t make sense; it doesn’t matter why or if the same interface works fine for certain staff members.

Happy to hear that ol' chestnut is still making the rounds about JobMine.

But you're right: even without knowing the design, the confusion it generates is evidence enough. Maybe it's a new road feature that will only generate confusion until people get used to it (see: roundabouts), but if so it needs to be signed like one and have its different portions given appropriate affordance to suggest their uses.