HCI assignment 4

1. OneBusAway: Results from
Providing Real-Time Arrival
Information for Public Transit
An evaluation of a paper from CHI 2010

2. The service
• OneBusAway provides real-time arrival
data for commuters in Seattle
• Initiated in 2008
• System evaluated in August 2009 via an
online survey

3. How OneBusAway (OBA)
works
• OBA is a tool that provides bus
information
• Delivered via various interfaces
• mainly mobile technology
• text
• iPhone
• web
• phone number

4. Contribution
• People are generally more satisfied with
using buses as a result of OBA
• Service has reduced impact of ‘slack time’
• Reduction of costs associated with
hardware to provide this information at
physical locations

5. Survey
• Web based survey via user questionnaires and
free-form comments
• Anonymous
• Incentive: winning $25
• Participants recruited via:
• OBA site
• Social networking sites
• Blogs

6. Survey focus
• Impact the OBA service has made on
commuters’ use of buses
• Does not look at the contribution of the
functionality of OBA

7. Survey findings
• Users feel more in control of their time
• Better perception of safety
• Increased use of public transport
• Increased levels of fitness
• Generally: usability of public transport can
be enhanced by providing good traveller
information systems

8. Assessment of evaluation
methods used
• Good:
• Free-for comments gather qualitative
information
• Same questions asked in different guise to
check response validity

9. Improvements to the
evaluation of OBA
• Focus of survey
• Sample population skewed/not guaranteed
representative
• Control group
• Direct measurements of behaviour

10. Suggestions
• 25% of respondents had data reliability
issues and usability complaints
• Include:
• Ease of learning
• Effectiveness
• Efficiency
• Does it meet the needs of the user?

11. Final suggesitons
• Engage Usability testing to provide
quantifiable data on how the tool is
performing (Mayhew, D. J.1999)
• Field studies

12. References
• Mayhew, D. J. (1999) The Usability
Engineering Lifecycle. Morgan
Kaufmann, San Francisco.
• Sharp, H., Rogers,Y., Preece, J. (2007)
Interaction Design: beyond human-
computer interaction 2nd. ed