{"items": [{"author": "Michael", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497075266212", "anchor": "fb-497075266212", "service": "fb", "text": "I like the changes quite a lot. You've convinced me to buy the book.", "timestamp": "1297784002"}, {"author": "Julia", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497078441212", "anchor": "fb-497078441212", "service": "fb", "text": "Yay good design! I would change the title of \"add route\" to \"see routes near here\" or something. Once I enter an address, it's unclear how to find out the routes near the address.", "timestamp": "1297784506"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497081936212", "anchor": "fb-497081936212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Michael: thanks!
@Julia: change made", "timestamp": "1297785110"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497082446212", "anchor": "fb-497082446212", "service": "fb", "text": "I also just renamed \"Remove Route\" to \"Hide Route\"", "timestamp": "1297785214"}, {"author": "Eric", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497105066212", "anchor": "fb-497105066212", "service": "fb", "text": "Get rid of the word \"more\" in more routes near here. Merge that menu with the hide route menu, by using check marks for the displayed routes.", "timestamp": "1297788319"}, {"author": "Andy", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497147736212", "anchor": "fb-497147736212", "service": "fb", "text": "Nice changes!
I'd also capitalize \"help and introduction\", just as you capitalized \"go\".", "timestamp": "1297794735"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497152071212", "anchor": "fb-497152071212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Andy: thanks! I just fixed the capitalization on help and introduction as you suggested. With the fix it looks too strong to me, but I think that's ok as long as people who need the help page can find it.", "timestamp": "1297795565"}, {"author": "Martha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497171971212", "anchor": "fb-497171971212", "service": "fb", "text": "I'm glad you liked the book and that it was helpful!", "timestamp": "1297798710"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497173166212", "anchor": "fb-497173166212", "service": "fb", "text": "thanks for the loan of it!", "timestamp": "1297798934"}, {"author": "Danner", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497173996212", "anchor": "fb-497173996212", "service": "fb", "text": "jeff, can you add scrolling zoom controls? its a standard allowance for a google maps iframe.", "timestamp": "1297799085"}, {"author": "Danner", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497176276212", "anchor": "fb-497176276212", "service": "fb", "text": "also jeff, your address bar mangling ruins the back button, did you see this article? http://isolani.co.uk/.../java.../BreakingTheWebWithHashBangs not quite the same issue, but relevant.", "timestamp": "1297799334"}, {"author": "Ofer", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497178861212", "anchor": "fb-497178861212", "service": "fb", "text": "A dropdown menu doesn't communicate \"this is an action you can take\", it communicates \"here are some options, you can change it if you want\". So when someone sees a menu that currently has \"See Routes Near Here\" they're likely to think sure, yeah, see routes near here, that's what I want... but how do I do that? If they actually click on the menu, they'll likely figure it out, but why click when it looks like the thing they want is already selected?
There are a few ways to solve this problem. You could make something that looks like a button rather than a menu, but brings up a menu when clicked. You could change the default text from \"See Routes Near Here\" to something that's a more obvious action invitation, like \"Select a Route Below...\" (or maybe you can think of something better). There are probably other things you could do.", "timestamp": "1297799668"}, {"author": "Danner", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497179596212", "anchor": "fb-497179596212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Ofer: I also suggested automatically adding routes depending on where you are, just to get the person started.", "timestamp": "1297799780"}, {"author": "Danner", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497180876212", "anchor": "fb-497180876212", "service": "fb", "text": "also jeff, you only need 6-7 levels of precision at most on your lat/lng, every pixel moved at the closest zoom changed the last 4 digits.", "timestamp": "1297799895"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497181121212", "anchor": "fb-497181121212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Danner: I had seen that article. I like storing state in the hash because then the url is bookmarkable. It does break the back button in two ways: a small drag of the map creates so many history entries that you can't effectively back button away from my page, and I don't reinterpret the hash if it changes. The second one is fixable, if you want the back button to mean \"undo last action\", but if people want the back button to take them to the site they came from I don't see a good solution.
I think being able to get back to a saved position and route selection is really valuable for a page like this, which is why I made the change. Before you had to click on \"permalink\" and then bookmark that, which not that many people were doing.", "timestamp": "1297799931"}, {"author": "Ofer", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497182651212", "anchor": "fb-497182651212", "service": "fb", "text": "I've done a fair amount of web usability testing and read a lot about it, and on the whole, people seem to prefer back=undo last significant action. My impression is that people would like back to undo adding or hiding a route, or a new address lookup, but would be annoyed if all it did was undo their last pan of the map. Of course, there's no way to know for sure without doing some actual usability tests.", "timestamp": "1297800157"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497184616212", "anchor": "fb-497184616212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Ofer: I agree that this is a problem, but I like all of the alternatives less. Something like \"select a route below\" still doesn't tell the user that the map will update immediately instead of after a followup button press. Restyling the dropdown means using an image, which then won't fit with the native look and feel for the browser.
Ultimately I want a solution where they don't have to choose routes, routes are already present. But unless I rework the map code substantially that's too computationally intensive for their browser.", "timestamp": "1297800427"}, {"author": "Ofer", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497188046212", "anchor": "fb-497188046212", "service": "fb", "text": "Maybe \"Add Route to Map:\" would be better? The : might be enough to suggest people look \"below\" and see what's on the menu.
And maybe if the map has no routes at all, have some red text appear above or below the menu saying \"select a T or bus route from the menu to add it to the map\".", "timestamp": "1297800896"}, {"author": "Jim", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497246216212", "anchor": "fb-497246216212", "service": "fb", "text": "I have to say I'm against most taglines. They're great when you're going to a site you've never been to before, and which you aren't really sure what it does... but how often do those conditions hold? On subsequent visits the tagline just takes up useful space. It's exactly like someone's long and funny answering machine message: great the first time, worse each time thereafter.", "timestamp": "1297809200"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497249191212", "anchor": "fb-497249191212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Jim: I don't much care for them myself, but I like the change mostly because (1) it makes it look more like a real website and (2) first time users unsure about what this site is for are a group I'd especially like to help.", "timestamp": "1297809651"}, {"author": "BDan", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497394561212", "anchor": "fb-497394561212", "service": "fb", "text": "One suggestion:
It would be useful if the route numbers and destinations were displayed alongside the bus position indicators. There are situations where I want to look at multiple routes at once, because if there's only one bus coming soon I don't care which one it is, but if there are two coming at about the same time I prefer one over the other. The destination is only important for routes that have multiple branches, so it could be ignored for other routes to save clutter.", "timestamp": "1297832320"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497555596212", "anchor": "fb-497555596212", "service": "fb", "text": "@BDan: if you hover the mouse over a bus it will highlight the route that bus will take. Does that solve your problem? I just added this to the help page.", "timestamp": "1297861276"}, {"author": "opted out", "source_link": "#", "anchor": "unknown", "service": "unknown", "text": "this user has requested that their comments not be shown here", "timestamp": "1297872721"}, {"author": "opted out", "source_link": "#", "anchor": "unknown", "service": "unknown", "text": "this user has requested that their comments not be shown here", "timestamp": "1297873046"}, {"author": "BDan", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497686536212", "anchor": "fb-497686536212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Henry: the system maps are useful for looking up what routes go where, but they don't even contain bus schedules, much less give realtime bus tracking, which MBTA Plot does, allowing you to get to the bus stop a few minutes before the bus actually gets there, regardless of the supposed schedule.
@Jeff: the highlighting helps somewhat (and I did find that on my own), but it's still not as efficient as just having them displayed, since it involves a bunch of mouse movement. On the other hand, Firefox keeps complaining about an unresponsive script whenever I add a route (probably just because my computer is old and slow), so maybe adding more complexity is not the way to go.", "timestamp": "1297875570"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497688091212", "anchor": "fb-497688091212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Henry: the maps are useful in different ways. The full system maps are currently the best thing for users who don't know what routes they're interested in yet. The mbtaplot maps are useful users who are mostly interested in when their bus/train will come or which of several routes it makes sense for them to take. If you don't have any idea what the routes are or where they go, the mbtaplot map can work, but the full system map is better.
Ultimately, I'd like to have my map do everything that the full system map does, which mostly means drawing all the routes all the time in a clear way. Possibly by converting the full system map into a google map layer.", "timestamp": "1297875726"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497688446212", "anchor": "fb-497688446212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Henry: the bus shelters do actually have these system maps, but only the relevant portion.", "timestamp": "1297875765"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497689606212", "anchor": "fb-497689606212", "service": "fb", "text": "@BDan: I don't have a clear idea of how you're proposing doing the headsigns. Are you saying that for each bus on the map there'd be a floating destination label next to it saying where it was going? That sounds kind of busy and messy.", "timestamp": "1297875888"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497691871212", "anchor": "fb-497691871212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Ofer: I could make the back button undo adding/removing routes but not panning. But only if I didn't update the url with panning information. Which would mean it's not fully bookmarkable, which was my reason for switching to hashtagging.
I could make it only update the hash with panning at the end of a drag, but there might be several sequential drags.", "timestamp": "1297876116"}, {"author": "BDan", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497720081212", "anchor": "fb-497720081212", "service": "fb", "text": "Well, I think for most buses just having the route number next to it would do nicely -- if it were the same color as the triangle for the bus, it wouldn't look bad, I think. For routes with branches, an abbreviation of the destination would be fine (and the abbreviations could potentially be hard-coded, since there aren't a huge number of them), e.g. \"89 Davis\" vs. \"89 Clar. Hill\".
If you're concerned about it being too busy, you could make it an option: just have a checkbox for \"Show Route Labels\" or something.", "timestamp": "1297879019"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497725656212", "anchor": "fb-497725656212", "service": "fb", "text": "@BDan: There are actually a huge number of variations. Many of them are once a day trips to stop at schools, but there are a lot of others too. So hand coding is big.
Worse, there are several variations that have the same headsign and don't even have \"Foo via Bar\" vs \"Foo via Baz\". So detecting the ones that need work is hard to do automatically.
But this isn't the main problem: the main problem is that anything I've done with trying to put in text into the main map has needed to be huge (and so busy/distracting) or it was unreadable. This is why the \"N Minutes\" popups that you get when you click on a bus are so big. To see this, try printscreening into an image editor and entering some text over the map.
(If you do this and get text you think looks readable without being huge and messy, I'd be curious about what settings you used)", "timestamp": "1297879562"}, {"author": "Ofer", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497757486212", "anchor": "fb-497757486212", "service": "fb", "text": "Henry: I think you might've missed the two key aspects of this tool:
1. Animated view of where all the busses and trains are *right now*, updated more or less as they move.
2. Click on any stop to get a list of all the buses arriving at that stop soon, and estimates for how long 'til each one gets there.
Those are things the MBTA PDFs don't do, or attempt to do. This tool's purpose is different.", "timestamp": "1297882579"}, {"author": "opted out", "source_link": "#", "anchor": "unknown", "service": "unknown", "text": "this user has requested that their comments not be shown here", "timestamp": "1297885147"}, {"author": "Ofer", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497792516212", "anchor": "fb-497792516212", "service": "fb", "text": "Henry has a good point. In fact, I noticed that myself, and I reposted the link to a few places, what I posted was the link to the intro page, rather than the front page. Or, I included a brief explanation of the site in my link text or next to it. Or, I gave people a link with a couple of routes near them already selected. So I guess I already had the impression that the front page doesn't fully communicate what mbtaplot does, and Henry's comment just clarifies that.", "timestamp": "1297886044"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497810551212", "anchor": "fb-497810551212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Henry: you're not a dope -- if the site doesn't make it clear to you what it does, that's the site's problem
As for being smartphone friendly, there are others (I like mbtainfo.com) that are designed for small screens and low bandwidth connections.", "timestamp": "1297887847"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=497815141212", "anchor": "fb-497815141212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Henry, Ofer: I updated the tagline to be \"lookup locations and arrival times\" to try and make it clearer what this site is for. I'm not too happy with the text, but I think it's an improvement.", "timestamp": "1297888319"}, {"author": "BDan", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=10150135296151213", "anchor": "fb-10150135296151213", "service": "fb", "text": "One more suggestion, after using it a bit more: it would be useful if the predicted times bubble updated automatically, rather than having to close and reopen it to see the latest info.", "timestamp": "1301691456"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/making-mbta-plot-more-usable/497045531212/?comment_id=10150135298246213", "anchor": "fb-10150135298246213", "service": "fb", "text": "@BDan: I've been meaning to do that", "timestamp": "1301691689"}]}