Bus ride and a usability lesson

A few mornings ago, something interesting happened in my bus ride to work. I boarded as normal, paid my fare and turned to find a seat. And then I stopped dead in my tracks. Completely destabilized by the seating arrangement in the bus. Instead of being layed-out like a normal city bus, that particular bus was layed-out like an inter-city coach. Rows of high-backed upholstered seats with armrests. I found a seat and started looking around.

The difference was not limited to the seats. When examining the rest of the bus, one other notable difference was the absence of the pull-rope to request a stop. Looking carefully, I noticed a strip of yellow-colored plastic right above the row of windows. I wish I had taken a picture of the yellow plastic strip to illustrate my point.

Following the strip all the way to the back, I spotted a sign instructing passengers to touch the strip to request a stop. During this 15 minutes ride to work, 2 people failed to figure-out how to request a stop and had to walk all the way to the front of the bus and request a stop directly to the driver.

In the end, that bus ride was a very interesting usability and design lesson.

Breaking convention: Most transit users are familiar with the pull-rope system. This is a system that has been used in transit buses... probably since there were buses. Breaking the convention forces the user to to learn a new convention and to make an effort to use the system.

Affordance: A yellow rope hung over the windows along the side of the bus screams: "pull me". This is a perfect example of an affordance. You don't need instructions, there's just one obvious way to use the mechanism.
A subtle yellow strip of plastic says: "I'm yellow and smooth and decorative and you'll have to read the sign if you want to figure me out". Actually, the fact that there is a sign at all should be a hint that something is wrong.

Prettier and more comfortable doesn't mean better: That bus was clearly more comfortable than the normal city bus. It was new and less noisy and had comfortable seats. That is all good but that is nothing if it forces you to make an effort to enjoy it. Those 2 people that had to request a stop with the driver surely didn't enjoy the extra comfort of their ride that morning.

This is a clear example of why design has to take into consideration the context of use. This design for the bus was probably perfect for an inter-city coach with long stretches between stops. But it was clearly not taking into account the needs and context of the everyday transit user.