Irish Rail website design feedback
 

Hi guys, hows it going? I just want to ask if any of you would be interested in providing me with feedback on my designs of the Irish Rail website. It would really help me out with my college course!

I chose the ticket reservation page because I felt there was room for improvement on the current site. There are two versions and I'd really like to find out which one is better and the reasons for your choice.

I didn't use graphics or colours etc. so the main focus is on the layout and ease of use. If you have a few minutes please check out the designs at the links below:

Journey planner (home) page v1
Train Selections page v1

Journey planner (home) page v2
Train Selections page v2

I'd really appreciate any feedback or suggestions, thanks in advance! :)

Irish Rail are very close to revealing a new website, with a completely new layout, content and a new journey planner. I saw the first drafts back in April. Its radically different from the current site.

Given that you may find that you need to rethink your approach as by the time your work is assessed Irish Rail will undoubtedly launched its new site.

A big hint would be to look at ticket price display and type selection as no one seems to be able to come up with a truly elegant solution

Is it smarter looking? Do you have a rough idea of when it will be released?

You will get to see it in two weeks

RUI members have access to it currently

I'm looking forward to it already:D . An early Christmas present for online Irish Rail customers!;)

Thanks Mark for letting me know! The assignment is due on Wednesday so hopefully should be ok! Do you think the ticket price and type selection could be improved in my design? I would be very interested in finding out how to improve it? Cheers, Will

Where? :o

EDIT- found it, nevermind

If this new website is due to be released in the next one or two weeks, wouldn't Irish Rail be advertising it now?

Two weeks from now might not be the best time for a transport company (or any company for that matter) to be releasing a website update.

What with it being the busiest time of year with loads of irregular travellers trying to book tickets and find train times, in Irish Rail land that would be the perfect time to replace their website.

A bit like deciding to shut down the Cork railway line the weekend of the Jazz festival.

True but the number of complaints concerning the current one continues to rise. The current one is very hard to use for those who are rare users and leads to massive confusion which generally results in unhappy customers

The booking engine on the new site and the current site is basically the same so both can (and do) run in parallel. So if you book on the new site and the go to the old site the booking details are there and vice versa. So both can run safely in parallel

Irish Rail's site remained available throughout last December, Dublin Bus and Luas collapsed in a matter of minutes

The site at the moment is alright, bit plain with big adverts but does the job. I can access it on my smartphone etc. I do miss the old template style though. http://www.iarnrodeireann.ie/about_us/our_fleet.asp. But I guess since we don't have orange Locomotives/Coaches it was out of date.

Will the new website be updated so that instead of being listed in the timetable as "Railcar", it will be listed as "Commuter"?

Also, on the Connolly-Belfast line, the trains should be listed as "Enterprise" instead of "Intercity". While I am aware that the Enterprise is an Intercity standard service, the ambiguity of different brand names could be confusing for train users. I also think that the online timetables could use pictures of the brand names in place of the plain text to give the overall timetable lists a smarter look. Anyway, if the new website is to go public in the next week or so, I am dying to see it.:D ;)

Secret is out

http://new.irishrail.ie

Key new toys

The station information pages
The inline display of fares

I'm unbelievably impressed! Thanks!

No great improvement for smartphone users - they don't seem to have put any real effort into optimising it for touch or small screens. But it does look a bit prettier and more modern that the old site.

I think the main omission is a quick way to find the times of the next few trains from a station, but luckily there is a fairly good iphone app called Irish Real Time Rail that does the trick nicely.

Put your station into the yellow panel for "Live Train & Station Updates".