December 8, 2008
WMATA Launches New Web Site
As promised, WMATA launched a redesigned web site today, accessible either from MetroOpensDoors.com or www.wmata.com. It's certainly a step in the right direction as far as giving Metro the appearance of being a part of the 21st century goes, though for longtime Wmata.com users, it'll take some getting used to.
While most of the changes are cosmetic, such as presenting Service Alerts in an easier to read, color-coded grid in the lower left corner, the rail map has been improved to include station addresses in pop-up windows that also give links to Google Maps, a feature that should make trip planning much more dynamic. Metrobus maps and timetables, unfortunately, continue to be offered in clunky PDFs.
We're still testing out the user experience, so let us know what you think about how the redesign works for you as a Metro customer.
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The difference in the new WMATA site versus the old one is incredible and far more intuitive to navigate than before - WMATA claims that the user can navigate to the page they want in three clicks or fewer, which I found to be true.
However, despite WMATA's efforts to make their site as accessible as possible, their update to Real Time Arrivals for rail is curious, given that the color of the line is no longer text but a small, colored graphic. The only way for a color blind person to differentiate between lines is the destination of the line listed. Overall, though, it's a nice improvement.
Also, the Pentagon page is sorely lacking in the information that it had before; for example, it no longer has the Pentagon Transit Center maps for the locations of buses, though it does have evacuation map PDF's that contain that information.
Overall, the new site is a drastic improvement.
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I like that the trip planner guesses what station you want after the first few letters, a la Google. However, even after coming up with the name of the station it leads to the same clunky interface that has to ask if you meant "Archives/Navy Memorial" when you just type in "Archives".
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I still wish they'd build more options into the trip planner. It would be nice to say "I want to go from X to Y but not by way of Z" in order to avoid rail work or whatever.
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Or, you know, actually make the Trip Planner work.
I typed in three different times, each separated by 15 minutes, into the Trip Planner on Friday and got 3 separate routes, one of which was completely absurd.
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Can we get our data to google transit already? The commuter buses are in there, but not wmata!
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It's a nice change ... but the Web 2.0 kitsch is a bit much.
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The site appears to be down, a blank page appears when I try to load it which I successfully did no less than an hour ago.
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If they can put their transit map into something powered by Google and link to Google maps, I sure hope they have Metro linked in with Google Transit anyday now.
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I like the new page design. I think it definitely looks more current and user-friendly.
What i'd like to see is a better way to get Bus Maps for the various routes and how they want information for VA or MD locations entered into the trip planner.
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Do they have a good mobile page that works on iPhones now? Their old mobile page didn't work that well, so you had to use their regular site. It would be nice if they had a site with bus and rail info optimized for the iPhone/Storm/whatever else.
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I'm getting a blank page too...hmmmmm....wonder what's up with that?
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@Shayan... I'm not sure if they had this before, but but try www.wmata.com/mobile ..it isn't iPhone enhanced but works decently (all the old bookmarks to the status pages are broken now anyway)
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Yeah, it seems to have died.
Based on what people are saying so far, it sounds like bus info hasn't improved much. I'd love to see actual bus maps locating all the stops. Or at least an alternative to those damned PDFs.
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I tried the wmata.com/mobile site some time ago with it. However, it didn't work right on the iphone, it worked right on my old cell phone though. Maybe once the mobile site comes back, I'll try it again with the iphone and see how it goes.
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@oceanchild Yeah, I don't understand the big deal about PDF's. They're clunky, cumbersome and totally unnecessary. WMATA definitely needs a better way to deliver bus route and timetable info.
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This beats the hell out of the old site. Even using it moderately for the past few years, I never liked it.
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I really like the real-time train arrivals and departures at http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/pids/real_time_arrivals.cfm.
The individual station pages look good on the iPhone and other mobile devices, and it's the closest thing I've found to LastCall (RIP).
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Wish they hadn't broken all the old links. For example, the Mac Dashboard applet for real-time train info and delays seems to have stopped working.
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"It's a nice change ... but the Web 2.0 kitsch is a bit much."
At least it looks nice, and they bothered to make the menus accessible.
And as for a site designed for iPhone, check out http://www.meenster.com/ for Metrorail arrivals.
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Nifty. Much easier to use.
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That .cfm extension warms my heart, and it looks pretty. (Maybe just because blue is my favorite color...) I love the "next train times" popup.
But: the text doesn't scale well -- I CTRL-+ and the presentation goes "blech" on index pages. Also, bus timetables really, really, really need to be available in plain-old grids. You can't warn me that when I click for the non-PDF versions I am leaving wmata.com? Argh.
C'mon, Metro - I know that cfpdf is a fun tag, but PDFs aren't really worth the trouble.
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just get nextbus working and integrated here, pleasepleaseplease
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Is it weird that I miss the old photos on the station profile pages? You know, when you wanted to know the address of a station and there'd be a completely nondescript photo of the station (along with other relevant information too)?
Oh pinup of the Cheverly metro station escalators, how I'll miss you.
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1) to others seeing the site down, try http://www.wmata.com (the www is apparently necessary)
2) "Discover the best ride in the nation" sounds like a Ron Jeremy promotional bus tour.
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@turkeyrotica is meenster real time? I'm guessing it was since it isn't working right now. (which makes me think that it is was a screenscaper which has since been broken with the new site)
I hope it is realtime because it looks sleek and better than bookmarking all the individual pages. Thanks!
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WHY CAN'T WE ADD VALUE TO A SMARTTRIP CARD ONLINE YET?
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nowisthetime: Meenster was undoubtedly ripping their data directly from the WMATA site, because the results mirrored the train arrivals popup info from the old WMATA site, and you're right, it's not working right now. Hopefully they're working on a fix. As for accuracy, I tested it on my CDMA BlackBerry underground a few times, and the data was pretty close to what was on the displays along the platforms.
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FYI, just plain wmata.com doesn't work as of this posting. You have to toss in the ubiquitous www. first, the site doesn't redirect it for you like most sites.
The design is nice on first glance, but like I'm sure most of you are saying, it'd be nice if they fixed the system before putting out a costly, flashy re-design of the website. C'mon guys.
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@ brookieDC
that's a really brilliant idea. yea, why not?!
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dammit!
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@ajw__93: the .cfm warms my heart as well.
Very nice redesign and a vast improvement on the old site.
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Why waste taxpayers money on this flashy flash redesign when they don't even have heated seats on Metro trains yet? I'm also pretty sure I saw some dust between two track rails yesterday at the Dupont Metro station, so there's clearly some improvement needed in Metro's Anti-Dust Initiative 2008.
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Total flashy piece of s**t. WTF is with all the .pdfs? What idiot wants to sit around for 5 minutes while an 8gb pdf downloads? There's no meaningful connection between bus maps and metro station maps, the design is counterintuitive, the layout is cluttered. Push the timetables and maps to Google and then nuke this thing from orbit. Complete waste of money.