Please note: the best practice guide has now been published. Entitled, 'Public Transport Information Web Sites: How To Get It Right: A Best Practice Guide', it is available to download at http://www.trg.soton.ac.uk/bpg. It is also available to purchase in hardcopy or CD ROM (click here to download Word97 order form). These pages are historic, produced during the project and remain for information only. They will not be updated again.

Internet PTI Best Practice - Project Approach

• Best practice guidance concerning the content and presentation of PTI can relate to other media used for delivery as well as the web. The best practice guide will concentrate on those aspects of presentation and content that are specific issues for (or are relatively more important for) the web.
• Further to the above, whilst there are certain usability heuristics that are generic to the web, there is a need to relate such principles specifically to PTI. PTI site users will, in the main, have different needs, aims and priorities to users of the majority of web sites, requiring information quickly and easily. They are unwilling to surf, having instead a specific goal to reach. They will be more impatient and less tolerant when seeing traveller information, demanding simple design and fast access to relevant information. Therefore, usability heuristics for PTI sites are likely to be different in some ways to those for other sites. We will give particular emphasis in the guide to aspects of best practice that have a greater bearing to PTI than to other forms of information available via the web.
• Mobile access to the web is a fast changing field. Whilst in due course it is likely to require the development of additional or supplementary best practice guidance, the guide being developed in this study will focus principally on PC based access to the web.
• The Guide will be structured by web site components and usability heuristics. The component headings and heuristics will provide a draft framework for the main content of the best practice guide.
• Within the time constraints of the project, it is not possible to solicit direct, formal involvement of end users. We are nevertheless mindful that user reactions to site design are the ultimate test of usability. Informal feedback will be sought via the feedback form on the project web site. The knowledge of the project team and their previous involvement in in-depth usability testing of PTI web sites will ensure that the needs and reactions of end users are represented.
• An effective means to illustrate the merits of good practice is to contrast good practice with bad practice. Specific examples from sites will be compared and contrasted, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each.
• 8.6 million people in the UK have sensory, physical or learning disabilities. Approximately one third of all households include elderly people or people with disabilities - members of society who are currently disproportionately excluded from many transport systems. As third and fourth generation web sites utilise new design technologies, becoming more technically and visually complex so, in many cases, does accessibility decrease. Information providers are likely soon to have not only a moral but also a legal obligation to provide accessible web sites. Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), coming fully into force by 2004, prevents discrimination against people with disabilities by providers of goods and services. The best practice guide will give particular attention to the issue of accessibility for people with disabilities.

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Page created: Feb 8 2001