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SEPTA in the News
December 8, 2009
December 8, 2009
December 8, 2009
December 8, 2009
December 8, 2009

Entries in website (4)

11:13AM

Feedback: SEPTA Homepage

The SEPTA homepage which I called "premature" has been up for a few months now, and the bugs are getting fixed. Most of the maps now link you to the right place, and there's no more blank pages randomly popping up. Unfortunately, there's still a reflection under the SEPTA logo.

So, what do you think, now that the design has had a chance to sink in. It was panned at first, but has it grown on you? Have you found any show-stopping bugs that still remain? Leave your comments.

3:17PM

Please, SEPTA. Stop releasing unfinished products.

To little fanfare this week, SEPTA unveiled their new mobile site. Most of the little fanfare is due to the fact that the site is clearly nowhere near finished.

There's a lot more to making a mobile site than simply reducing your real site to thumb-sized. When you open it on an iPhone, the screen is super-scaled down. Links are close together, and therefore hard to tap. TrainView is the same massively wide view you get on the desktop and requires lots of scrolling. A little bit of styling can go a long way.

Please, SEPTA. Finish your products before you release them. I know you want to make them grow based on how people receive and use them, and I know the excitement of launching something new, but this just makes you look sloppy. This is the web equivalent of doing your first passenger run of Silverliner V cars when they're still filled with sand bags.

Before you release, make it feature complete. Where are the other schedules? The mobile site is great if you're taking a train, but useless if you're on a bus, subway, or trolley. Put some styling on the site (take a look at iSepta), because most of us are going to be looking at this on iPhones, Androids and BlackBerrys, not on flip phones. Put in something to wow us, like an integration between TrainView and Google Maps.

Release it once, and make it good. Don't release an incomplete site just to say you released it.

11:22PM

SEPTA gets a new website & a takes a step closer to Google Transit


Over the weekend, SEPTA unveiled a new look to its website.  I think it's a great update, but as one rider emailed me, 
It's a step in the right direction, but it's also (very visibly) half-done.
And/But Kim Heinle, SEPTA's Assistant General Manager of Customer Service, has promised more "significant site improvements" in the future.

And speaking of improvements in the future, many have been lamenting the fact that SEPTA is still not linked up with Google Transit--including me as early as December 2007.  And recently, adding Google Transit was tied for first in SEPTA's  survey asking "what new features or functions would you like to see added to the SEPTA website?"

We're still waiting.... but the wait may be coming to an end.  Heinle recently wrote me: 
We are also commited to join the google platform in the next few months (my goal is not later than July). 
Stay tuned....

(image credit.)



7:30AM

Checking in on SEPTA's surveys


Soon after Kim Heinle became SEPTA's customer service guru, SEPTA began to solicit riders' opinions via its website.  Have any of these opinions changed SEPTA's behavior?  It's still too early to tell.  But if you want to see what those opinions are, SEPTA has published them online.

Take a look at the survey results here.

And while you're at it, take the current survey regarding posible improvements to the website here.  (And make sure you tell SEPTA how you feel about Google Transit there.)

UPDATE:  As one commenter notes, a new survey just went up today.  It's regarding announcements made (or not made) by SEPTA drivers.  Enjoy!

(image credit.)