A very long journey - Redesigned Irish Rail website fails users

— Published January 30th, 2006  |  by Paul Fitzsimons   |  11 Comments

Given Iarnrod Eireann's recent efforts to improve the quality of their services, and the slick PR campaign that has heralded these efforts, we had very high expectation for the new website. Surely it would offer an easy way to make travel plans and purchase tickets. A vast improvement on the old website, saving time and effort for stressed and hassled commuters?

And does it? The answer is a resounding no.

The kindest thing that we can say about the new site is that it isn't actually worse than the old – it certainly looks better. But the truth is that the new site is a massive disappointment. The old site contained a random selection of usability and accessibility problems that undermined its effectiveness. The new site contains a new but equally random selection of the same sort of problems.

Booking process is confusing

In a recent interview on the Sunday Business Show (Today FM January 22) Iarnrod Eireann chairman, Dr John Lynch, explained that the company were planning to introduce a pricing strategy similar to that of the airlines, whereby ticket fares would be less expensive during off-peak hours, and more expensive during peak travel time. A bold business strategy, but it's a pity that the company didn't learn from the success of the airlines when redesigning their website.

Both Aerlingus and Ryanair have very effective websites. Carefully considered designs allow customers to find, choose and purchase tickets for their desired routes in a few easy steps. On the surface, this is what the Irish rail website attempts to do. But rather like the train to Sligo, the journey has some strange turnings and it takes a very long time to complete.

From the home page, you can enter your destination and travel dates. So far so good – although the behaviour of the calendar is a little unusual and will certainly cause problems for blind users. Then you're given the option to 'search the timetable' or to 'search reservations'.

If you choose timetable, the departure and arrival times are displayed. If you choose reservations, the same information is displayed, but this time the available trains have selection boxes beside them.

The timetable interface

The reservations interface

Now given that a single interface would have allowed customers to first find a suitable train and then buy a ticket, this distinction is both confusing and unnecessary.

It's almost as if the site is intentionally diverting you to the wrong location. Search timetable is the default option, so most users will enter destination, travel dates and click Go. But having found the train that they want, they will embark on a frustrating and unsuccessful search for the purchase button.

The few customers that don't give up, will eventually discover that they should have chosen the reservations option.

It doesn't get any better

But this isn't the end of the confusion. The reservations page is laid out as a grid with a number of the different columns. In the Purchase column, there are three different selection boxes to choose from, unhelpfully labelled P, S and T.

It takes more than a few moments to realise that P, S and T refer to the fare types: Premier Seat, Standard Seat and Ticket Only. A fact explained by a key at the bottom of the page. (If your search returns a reasonably large number of trains, you can't see the key without scrolling down.) Further explanation of the fare types is hidden away in the Help page, and nowhere is there any indication of cost.

Having selected trains, the next step is to enter passenger details. You are also required to specify the ticket type, which is a bit confusing because this step was started with the fare selection on the previous screen. It's only now that you learn the cost of the fare, so if a premier seat is beyond your budget you need to back track, and make the train selection again.

With the train, fare and ticket selection completed, the next step is to enter name, address and delivery / collection details. This step works reasonably well, but it's not without some design quirks.

The layout of the customer information form is unnecessarily complicated, and although customers are required to indicate whether they're from the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland, it's possible to choose any county from the drop down list irrespective of the choice made. For example, it's possible to enter address details for Dublin, but to inadvertently select Co Down. To compound this problem there is no obvious way to change address details if you make a mistake.

It proved impossible to buy the ticket online

The next step is to enter your credit card information, which we attempted using a Visa card. The transaction was unsuccessful, so we tried a second time. Still unsuccessful we called the credit card company, to see if there was anything wrong with the card. The card was good, so we checked the website for a telephone number to contact Iarnrod Eireann. There was no telephone number, so at that point we gave up, unable to complete the transaction.

We later learned (from Dr Lynch's radio interview) that due to 'technical difficulties' the website does not currently support Visa – the world's most popular credit card – but that 'experts' were working on the problem.

Poor usability and accessibility across the website

If the core functionality is flawed, so is the usability of other parts of the site. Some of the graphical links at the bottom of all the pages take you to other pages on the Irish Rail site, but others take you to different sites entirely without warning (some in the same window, some in a new window). If you're not careful, you'll end up on the Ticketmaster site. Handy if you want seats for Kanye West along with your commuter season ticket.

If you're a traveller with disabilities, you're out of luck. Rather than building accessibility into the redesign, there's a limp 'Visually Impaired' version which brings you straight back to the main site as soon as you try and book anything.

And have you tried to use the kiosks in Heuston station?

Ticket types available from the kiosk.

Kiosks are the ATM-like machines that you can use to buy your ticket instead of joining the slowly moving queue for the teller. In the UK, kiosks at train and tube stations have been working successfully for years; and the new passport check-in kiosks at Dublin airport have been a much needed time saver for travellers. This isn't a new technology, so surely it would have been relatively easy for to get the design of the ticket kiosks right?

Again, the answer is no.

First it's a struggle to find your destination (it took over a minute to find out how to choose a destination other than the top 5), and the choice of ticket is confusing. Where is the choice to buy a standard return ticket? We started over several times assuming that we had missed something. What we actually missed was the Irish Rail adult-education class where they explain that a "Monthly Saver" ticket, despite sounding like discounted ticket for frequent travellers, is just the standard return ticket!

On a busy morning the long queue for the teller continues to move slowly, while the machines are mostly ignored by commuters, and it's easy to see why.

How not to redesign

So how did all this happen? Even a few hours of user testing would have revealed the basic problems. Instead we're stuck with designs that confuse and frustrate.

In the case of the website, it looks as if the design team were concerned with appearance ("cleaner, more modern, aligned with our new branding strategy") rather than behaviour. How else do you explain the pattern of bad usability that pervades the entire design, with well established online booking conventions completely ignored?

The new website and ticket kiosks fail because they are products of a flawed process. When users are absent from the design process, the result cannot properly meet their needs. And in failing to address the needs of users, the website and kiosk fail not only commuters, but the business itself.