ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

Don’t agree with what? It actually is the chainsaw manufacturer’s fault if some idiot drops a tree on themselves?

As far as I can tell my general statement is unarguable. The discussion is around how the various general statements apply to specific situations. In the case of the tap system, I agree it is primarily the system designers’ job to make it obvious how to do it right. But even there, users bear part of the responsibility too. If 99% of people have no problem tapping the first time, then the other 1% just need to learn. It seems pretty clear we’re not at 99%, so there is still something to be done.

As I suggested, if the “is” is replaced with something less absolute, such as “is often”, then the original statement is fine. But it’s not always fine — the universe just doesn’t work that way.

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.