In March 2008 I spend some time talking about the opportunities of open transit data - making public transport better discoverable. By that time - one of the ideas I was throwing around was the "urban nomad compass". A mobile phone based tool that can instantly show me the public transport connections from my current location (via GPS) and my next destination.

A lot has happend since then - the tools are now available:

• First was SBB to release it's own NaviGo. I only did a short test - but I was disappointed as they tried to solve too many use cases. And the feature I use most is hidden behind a lot of clicks.

• Then Google added the public transport routing into the Google Maps for Mobile. It's the coolest implementation - as it is map-based - but lacks public transport data coverage throughout whole Switzerland. Note that the built-in version in the Apple iPhone can't do it - yet.

The most useful implementation (for me) - is GottaGo. An Apple iPhone exclusive application that does exactly this. Get my location - enter destination - hit GottaGo - and run.



Today a new release of GottaGo has been made available in the App Store. To install search for "GottaGo" on the iPhone App Store and pick the one with the ! at the end - or via iTunes follow this link: http://liip.to/gottago. I had the opportunity to put the new release into real-life test in the last few weeks. I'm pleased with the result.

Last Saturday I discovered new ways navigating inside Basel. Although I'm familiar with the trams and buses - finding the fastest public transport connection between me and my destination - using multi-hop connection with tram and bus - is not something ordinary people can do without help of such a tool. (I know there are people knowing the whole schedule in their brain - but I have other hobbies).

But what is the difference between the mobile timetable and GottaGo? 2 things:

• you don't have to provide your departure station. Sometimes it's faster to walk 5min to another bus stop - instead of taking the tram just near-by! The "normal" timetable don't tell you that.
• it's instant - having my favorites/history present - some tabs with your finger - and run

Credits fly out to Marc - the team at Liip for supporting the efforts.

Posted by Cedric at 9/24/2008 08:36:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I made a bold statement - that not being able to listen to your visitors cursing in front of your web site - would be an innovation killer.

In my top list I wrote:

Wisdom of the crowds applied to your web site usability. You would be surprised how much insights you would win when you could listen to them. Simple trick: add a shout box into the footer. Keep track of page, browser, screen resolution, shout and start learning! Much more could be done here..

Yoan added as comment:

About the “wisdom of crowd” applied to your website, the first rule of usability is: “Don't Listen to Users”

Fair enough. Let me share my experiment with doing exactly this.

There is a fundamental difference between asking somebody "what do you like?" vs. catching somebody in affect ranting / or asking themselves questions while using a web site for real (not testing!). The expression of joy or frustration while doing real use cases - or trying to accomplish a goal - is imho the most valuable feedback.

How to get it? At local.ch we added a shout box into the footer of the page:


We keep track of every shout including the context (page, browser, screen-size). And use this information for various purposes. But - what kind of "cursing" do we get? How useful is it?

First of all - is a "reality check" - they tell you what sucks. Be careful with these - only make judgments if you have enough data and context to back-up your decision to change something.

Grouping comments by page type allows you to spot patterns in the questions/comments. You can try different implementations (things as little as naming of a button) to see how the feedback/comments are changing over time.

People will tell you what they expect to see (they try to achieve) - without you asking them! This is a great source of inspiration to innovate on. Be it incremental improvements - or crazy ideas (there are geniuses out there - believe me).

Do people except answers? Am I going to be busy answering questions instead of coding? My original ideal of the "shout box" do not encourage people to enter their e-mail. At local.ch we tried various versions of the box - the current implementation is bigger (more text and comment about e-mail). In this case you get more people requesting information via this form - what kind of defeats the purpose.

And yes.. it can be fun too. It's interesting to see how off-topic or just plain clueless people can be.. sometimes I'm asking myself if they do that deliberately.

Disclaimer: Creating a web site that is good usable requires more than "listing to swearing". Consult your favorite usability agency to implement an user-centric interaction design.

Posted by Cedric at 9/16/2008 11:15:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Time for some ranting and finger-pointing. But are these problems not opportunities?

make sure your fancy webapp keeps working on IE6

Not sure how much of an innovation killer - but for sure the top cost causer in web development. Add up all hours you need to fiddle around with CSS and JS hacking - and send the bill to Microsoft. I'm certain it would be cheaper for Microsoft to pay the necessary work to remove the hurdles inside enterprises, so they can update to a recent browser - vs. paying all your IE6 hacking bills? Anybody did the math?

Yes - Internet Explorer 6 has still around 25% market share (that is as much as Firefox and Safari together!)

send SMS worldwide (to a decent price)

Beyond simplicity - the success of Twitter is thanks to the clever use of SMS to keep users involved. There is one problem with SMS - the cost for sending them to your international users. Twitter had to shut-down the service for Europe - in process to negotiate prices with the telcos. Aren't there businesses specialized in SMS gateways with wholesale prices for worldwide usage?

We would see a lot more websites using SMS as "remote command line" to keep users updated and involved.

building Webapps like we did Microsoft Access projects in 1997

Imagine you have a meeting with your client/product manager - while talking about the wireframes, functional design and change requests - you can just roughly do them and instantly see the result to iterate with feedback. Yes - I did that back in 1997 (with MS Access). It's hard to find people today that can do that using the web technology stack. Am I missing something? (True - I'm impressed by the Django admin-forms)

location awareness in mobile browsers

We will remember 2008 as the year where location awareness came to mobile phones (Assisted GPS, Loki and other techniques made it possible). But wait! I'm a web developer and I can't get the users location from the handset. Why is it again Google that gets the stuff done? Hello Nokia? Sony Ericsson? Apple?

Why would I want location? Because websites should be able to adapt to my current location. You don't get it? Buy yourself an iPhone and get a treat with location-based apps.

hear when people are swearing in front of your site

Wisdom of the crowds applied to your web site usability. You would be surprised how much insights you would win when you could listen to them. Simple trick: add a shout box into the footer. Keep track of page, browser, screen resolution, shout and start learning! Much more could be done here.. (Read more on how to catch in-front-of-website-swearing)

micro-billing never took off

Paypal helped a lot. But it's not efficient to transfer small amounts of money. I find it interesting to see how Amazon is handling it's Webservices pricing - a model for the future? But then again - it kind of works with "free".

The HTTP spec has a return code 402 - Payment Required. -> "This code is reserved for future use."

Update September 16th:

Comment on reddit: "Pretty shitty list."

Fair enough. Come up with your own list of guesses why for example:

• your company has (still) not made its processes transparent to customers over the web (what has that to do with me as web developer? - go figure!)
  
• although you are a talented developer - creating a good web GUI has turned into specialist job (and generally takes too long to get done)
• you spend more time with software infrastructure than solving your real challenge

It's easier to come up with innovation "enablers" - than with "killers" (aka known unknowns)

Posted by Cedric at 9/14/2008 07:30:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post