Usability is route to success for Transport Direct

Transport Direct is a new car and public transport travel information and journey planning website for mainland Britain which aims to provide information on the best way to travel from A to B.  System Concepts has been involved from the start of the project, providing expert guidance on usability and accessibility, to ensure that the site’s wide range of users derives maximum benefit from this award-winning, innovative technology.

The consultancy originally won a six-month contract in December 2002 to provide usability expertise for a project team within the Department for Transport responsible for Transport Direct, and additional contracts have been awarded to enable this work to be continued.

System Concepts, as usability experts, has been responsible for overseeing market research and conducting usability and accessibility testing.  In addition it has been monitoring usage and online customer feedback, as the Transport Direct website developed to meet the requirements of its target users.  Crucially, this audience includes those people who are deemed socially excluded in the area of travel and transport information.

Part of the Government’s 10-year plan for transport, the Transport Direct website presents a wealth of complex travel planning and real time information from all over Britain in one consistent interface, enabling people to plan their journeys and compare routes and prices.  It has already picked up prestigious awards including the Gold Award for Electronic Trading presented by the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) and Management Today magazine. 

Covering all types of transport (including air, rail, coach, bus and car), the system will: inform customers about transport in an area or between multiple locations; show customers the choices they have when they are planning their journey; allow customers to book and pay for it (via a hand-off to the relevant commercial site); and advise customers about any delays and congestion before they set out and during their journey.  The ultimate aim is to enable people to make intelligent, informed travel decisions, to promote efficient use of existing transport services and to remove social and psychological barriers that prevent people from currently travelling.

The innovative technology employed by the website and the breadth of data available sets the portal apart from the existing market, creating a truly ‘multi-modal’ planner whereas other planners tend to focus upon a single mode of transport.  However, it requires a well-designed user interface, both flexible and quick and easy to use, in order to navigate customers to the precise information that they require at their given stage of journey planning.

System Concepts started by characterising the initial target audience and identifying the tasks they would want to perform and has since undertaken several projects, most recently conducting usability and accessibility tests on the first release of the website, including testing with users with a range of physical and learning disabilities.

The key tasks for System Concepts have been to provide the following human-centred design activities: usage analysis, user interface guidance, usability evaluation and issues management.

In accordance with internationally recognised standards of user-centred design (e.g. ISO 13407), for each new tranche of functionality, System Concepts identifies user goals and expected tasks, develops ‘usage scenarios’ and builds the context-of-use, in terms of user and environmental profiles.

In building the context-of-use, the consultancy conducted an audience segmentation of the proposed portal, defining a number of key user categories and creating a set of ‘personas’, which were stereotypical examples of the user profile categories, to ensure that the functionality and the user interface design met genuine customer needs in a way that they found easy to use.

System Concepts also worked closely with developers in design workshops to ensure that the user interface met usability principles and best practice and have regularly usability tested the site, both with able-bodied and disabled representative end-users, in addition to conducting regular QA reviews.  The consultancy also oversaw prototype development and testing with over 180 customers prior to the development of the first live build.

Finally, the team regularly maintains a log of all usability issues identified during testing or reviews, or through online customer feedback, prioritises these issues, calculate the risks associated with them and negotiates solutions with the development team.

Although most of the development activity has involved a desktop-based service, the Transport Direct team has recently developed a version for mobile telephones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), for which System Concepts is also providing key usability guidance.

Transport Direct has consistently chosen to work with System Concepts due to a combination of the consultancy’s technical expertise and its ability to problem-solve user interface issues with developers and stakeholders effectively.

Shane Snow, senior adviser, Transport Direct commented, “Transport Direct requires a huge amount of data about all types of transport which we then have to join up and present to the public in a clear and easy to understand way, so getting the user interface right is essential. Transport Direct uses complex technology to present information in innovative ways and will be made available over a range of digital channels. It is imperative that all our services are usable and accessible to a wide range of people with differing degrees of experience and ability.

“System Concepts has helped us to ensure that users have been involved at every stage in the design of Transport Direct, conducting rigorous usability testing and providing first class and imaginative advice to help meet the many new challenges we have faced.”

Are you interested in helping us with usability and accessibility tests?   If so, and you have a disability, Leslie Fountain would be very interested to hear from you.  Contact her on  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or phone 020 7240 3388.