The new MBTA.com has arrived
For about a year now, the Customer Technology team here has been working to overhaul MBTA.com. If you’ve visited us in the past few months on a phone or tablet, you’ve probably noticed — but we finally flipped the switch for all our visitors about a month ago.
What we’ve delivered
The old MBTA.com was released in 2007 — the same year the first iPhone came out, and a year before WCAG 2.0 — the modern standard for web accessibility — was published.
Needless to say, we did a lot of work to make sure the new site is mobile friendly and more accessible to all our users. Here are some highlights:
- The site’s navigation and components have been designed with the needs of people with visual impairments in mind. Additionally, the color contrast and fonts in our designs work better for people with low vision.
- You can now find schedules, live vehicle locations, and alerts all in the same place, making it easier to understand what’s happening with your train or bus.
- We’ve integrated live departure information for every stop and station and live boarding information for commuter rail trains.
- We’ve rewritten and reformatted our most useful content so it’s easier for everyone to read and friendly to screen readers.
- The site reformats for a pleasant experience on mobile devices (which represent 70% of our site visits), but it’s designed to look good and be easy to use whether you’re on your phone or a desktop.
All that’s pretty awesome, and we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished so far.
But we’re not done.
What we’re still working on
We’re always improving the website. Here are a couple things that we’re working on and hope to share soon:
- Search: We need to be able to provide riders with search results about their journeys — not just press releases from 2011. We’re working on ways to separate search queries about trips from the other content we have, but that presents some unique challenges. What exactly constitutes a “trip search”? Is it just schedules, alerts, stations, and planning trips? What about when you can bring a bike on the T, or how to ride with pets? There’s more nuance to this than meets the eye.
- Alerts: Our system of alerts today doesn’t communicate enough to our riders. How severe is a delay? When does something deserve to be given priority on our pages? How can we differentiate between various types of service problems? These are the questions we’re considering as we to come up with a consistent logic that’s intuitive for all our riders.
- Live tracking: We’ve invested in the technology to track where trains and buses are, but so far haven’t found the ideal way to communicate that information to our riders. We’re working on improvements to our live views of vehicle locations, so you can trust the website to show you where your train or bus is, in real-time.
A website should be a living thing that adapts to the needs of its users. The old MBTA.com didn’t change much over its 10 years. That won’t happen this time. Look out for continuous releases and improvements, just like you would expect from any other app or piece of software you use — Spotify, iOS, Facebook.
Beyond MBTA.com
But as we all know (we’re riders too!), there are so many other ways people interact with the MBTA. Signs and announcements in stations and on vehicles; notifications for service alerts; the applications you use to track the next bus or train ; our customer support line and feedback form; Twitter.
That’s why we’re here. It’s our job to understand what riders need and build tools to help solve their problems. We’re getting leaner, smarter, and more design-driven — and we’re working hard to make sure you see the results.
But to keep up the pace, we need your help.
Want to be a part of the process? Join our community panel to give us feedback or check out our Customer Technology jobs site to find out how to become a part of our team.
