{"id":1649,"date":"2008-10-28T12:55:03","date_gmt":"2008-10-28T19:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wapreview.com\/?p=1649"},"modified":"2020-09-29T11:39:27","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T18:39:27","slug":"mobile-transit-info-for-ottawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/1649\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile Transit Info For Ottawa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"OC Transpo Homepage\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/octranspo1.jpg\" alt=\"OC Transpo Homepage\" width=\"184\" height=\"289\"\/>Ottawa&#8217;s transit agency, <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">OC Transpo<\/span>, recently launched a mobile transit site at <a title=\"mobile site\" href=\"http:\/\/octranspo.mobi\">octranspo.mobi<\/a>.&nbsp; The mobile site is being promoted with a prominently placed ad on the agency&#8217;s full web site that links to a page with a <a href=\"http:\/\/octranspo.com\/mobi\/Mobi_Intro\/MobiIntro_menuE.htm\">description of the service and instructions<\/a> for it&#8217;s use. The instructions seem to be targeted at people who have never used the mobile web.&nbsp; The mobile site itself is intuitive enough that most users should have no trouble using it without having to refer to the instructions.<\/p>\n<p>The site is offered in English and French and has four main functions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Travel Planner:<\/strong> Enter start and end points, date and time of day and the planner returns&nbsp; trip instructions including detailed turn by turn walking directions (2nd image) to and from the bus stops.&nbsp; Points can be entered as an address, intersection, bus stop number or by choosing a landmark from a list<\/li>\n<li><strong>Route Schedules<\/strong>: Enter route number, chose date and approximate time of day,&nbsp; direction and up to three stops from a list to view a schedule.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Stop Times<\/strong>: Enter bus stop number, chose date and approximate time of day and up to five stops from a list to view all scheduled bus arrivals at that stop.&nbsp; Stop numbers are posted at bus and train stops.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fares<\/strong>: Complete list of all OC Transpo fares and passes with prices and restrictions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Walking directions\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/octranspo2.jpg\" alt=\"Walking directions\" width=\"182\" height=\"226\"\/>I found octranspo.mobi easy to use on a variety of handsets.&nbsp; Page sizes are small making the site responsive even on slow networks and low end phones. The route planner&#8217;s directions are&nbsp; very clear and detailed.<\/p>\n<p>There are a few areas where minor changes would make the site&#8217;s already very good usability even better.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Access keys<\/strong> are used on the home page for one click navigation. I&#8217;d like to see them added to the navigation menu at the bottom of each page.<\/li>\n<li>The <em>&#8220;Fares&#8221;<\/em> section is only linked from the home page of the site, the main menu doesn&#8217;t have a link to it or back to the home page.&nbsp; Once you drill down into the site, the only way to get to &#8220;<em>Fares&#8221;<\/em> is by pressing <em>&#8220;Back&#8221; <\/em>multiple time to reach the home page.<\/li>\n<li>The site uses <strong>tables <\/strong>extensively.&nbsp; Although tables are considered a bit of a no-no in mobile design they actually work quite well on this site &#8211; except in the route schedules. If more than one stop is chosen a multi column table to be used to display the schedule times.&nbsp; On phones with a screen less than 320px wide, the table will either wrap or require horizontal scrolling.&nbsp; Listing the times as unformatted text, three across, while not as attractive, would be more usable.<\/li>\n<li>In the trip planner, intersections have to be entered with an ampersand &#8220;&amp;&#8217; between the two streets (the online help incorrectly shows a commercial at sign &#8220;@&#8221; in the example which will not work).&nbsp; I&#8217;d like to see &#8220;and&#8221; excepted as an alternative as it&#8217;s more intuitive and on many phones it takes fewer keystrokes to type than &#8220;&amp;&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know who designed this site, but I&#8217;d rate it as one of the better mobile transit sites I&#8217;ve seen. The site is responsive, click paths and data entry options are nicely optimized for mobile and the site returns exactly the sort of information a user needs when navigating public transit.&nbsp;&nbsp; Transit is a natural for mobile, it&#8217;s a shame more&nbsp; public transit sites aren&#8217;t as well designed as this one.<\/p>\n<p><em>Via<\/em>: <a href=\"http:\/\/mobility.mobi\/showthread.php?t=21853\">Mobility Mobi<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Mobile Link<\/em>: <a title=\"mobile site\" href=\"http:\/\/octranspo.mobi\">octranspo.mobi<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Ratings:<\/em> Content: <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/sm-blue-star.gif\" alt=\"*\" width=\"15\" height=\"13\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/sm-blue-star.gif\" alt=\"*\" width=\"15\" height=\"13\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/sm-blue-star.gif\" alt=\"*\" width=\"15\" height=\"13\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/sm-blue-star.gif\" alt=\"*\" width=\"15\" height=\"13\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/sm-blue-star.gif\" alt=\"*\" width=\"15\" height=\"13\"\/> Usability: <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/sm-red-star.gif\" alt=\"X\" width=\"15\" height=\"13\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/sm-red-star.gif\" alt=\"X\" width=\"15\" height=\"13\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/sm-red-star.gif\" alt=\"X\" width=\"15\" height=\"13\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/sm-red-star.gif\" alt=\"X\" width=\"15\" height=\"13\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"_\" src=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/images\/red-starOL.gif\" alt=\"_\" width=\"15\" height=\"13\"\/><\/p>\n<p><em>Filed In<\/em>: <a href=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/index.php?id=21\">Travel-Transit\/Transit <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ottawa&#8217;s transit agency, OC Transpo, recently launched a mobile transit site at octranspo.mobi.&nbsp; The mobile site is being promoted with a prominently placed ad on the agency&#8217;s full web site that links to a page with a description of the service and instructions for it&#8217;s use. The instructions seem to be targeted at people who have never used the mobile web.&nbsp; The mobile site itself is intuitive enough that most users should have no trouble using it without having to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/1649\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[49],"tags":[148,412,413,411],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1649"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22111,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions\/22111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}