faceplant-ux

[faceplant-ux]

The Buses at Bonaventure

Good news: I scored a role as a Junior UX Specialist. 

Bad news: It’s an internship, with uncertainty as to whether I’ll continue after. I’d like to, but it’s not my call. Nor the call of my team, which I absolutely adore.

Worse news: I have a round-trip commute of 3 hours every day to get from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu to Montréal, Québec.

Maybe I’ll spend another post getting into the logistics of inter-provincial moving, but for now I want to focus on the most agonizing part of my day: going home from work. 

Just above the Bonaventure metro station you can catch all the intercity buses to Longueuil, Brossard, and other little cities and towns, like my beloved little Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. I’m living in St-Jean with a friend while I wait to get my apartment on July 1st. (As a side note, 10% of the population of Montréal is also moving on July 1st. People today sometimes debate whether or not this is a giant middle finger to Canada itself due to Québec’s past separatist streak and July 1st being Canada Day, but historically it was rooted in preventing winter evictions.)

But I digress. There are many platforms with many doors, and during rush hour it’s chaos. There are four buses that go to St-Jean, each with slightly different routes but ultimately ending up at the Terminus downtown:

96S (super express - yes I am not making this up): Goes directly downtown, no stops.

96E (express): Goes downtown after winding through several St-Jean areas. Does not go past my abode.

96A (autoroute 30): Takes a specific highway - the A30 - before coming in from the north through a St-Jean community called St-Luc.

96L (local): Also comes in through St-Luc.

I live in St-Luc! So I can take either the 96A or 96L to get me home. 

Here, we see Doors 17 and 18, where the St-Jean buses arrive. During rush hour, the 96S arrives at Door 18, while the other three buses arrive at Door 17, one after the other. Rush hour congestion causes the buses to often be 10 to 15 minutes late, and they each already are scheduled for every 10 to 15 minutes. There are painted orange lines on the ground labelled with door numbers.

After three weeks of commuting I have learned that most people care about the 96E. This means that if I am standing in line to Door 17 and a 96L or 96A bus arrives, most people in line will stay in place. If I am further back in the line and don’t see the bus I want waiting for me, tough shit. If I glimpse my ride in an unmoving line, I have to unceremoniously exit the line, weave through the other passengers, and get to the front in order to board. 

But is there a way of keeping track of which bus arrives when? That’s what the lovely screen over the door is for! However, buses are still late during rush hour. As soon as the scheduled bus time passes the bus vanishes from the list, whether it has actually departed or not. With riders relying on the screen, there’s a moment of dread when your bus disappears and you’re no longer sure if it will be showing up. The 96E arrives. People flood around you as you stand awkwardly in their way. Where is your bus?

One time I tried to be proactive and wait at the beginning of Door 17′s line after a 96E had cleared it out. When my bus arrived, someone tapped on my shoulder. An American standing in line for Door 18, but something was off -- his body was positioned towards Door 17. He insisted I was butting the line. I pointed at the orange line he was standing on, and the door screen. He shook his head and tersely repeated that his line was for 96A that was just arriving.

So I was wrongly standing on Line 17, waiting for the bus that showed up to Door 17? 

Or at least, that’s how I would have liked to react. Up to that point I had been very depressed, homesick, and anxious from moving across provinces and starting a totally new job. This guy was older and looming over my 5′4″ self. Too tired to argue, too high strung to speak calmly, and too little to question trying, I held back my angry tears and just stepped aside. He and everyone behind him boarded the bus. I felt like I was going crazy. There was still plenty of room for me boarding last, and I even got a window seat I liked, which was also across the aisle from the guy that booted me from the front.

After that incident, I decided to stop playing the line game altogether. My buses of choice are never full. From now on I take a nice seat on one of the stools hugging the walls that look out to the doors. As soon as I see my bus arrive, I watch the crowd for movement, and then board last. I usually get the seat I want, anyway. 

The bad UX is rampant here. There are three pain points uncovered so far:

Can’t see when a bus arrives if you’re farther back in line. 

If you see the bus you want but no one in your line is moving, you have to escape the line to board.

Your bus could disappear from the list of buses, even if it’s stuck in traffic, so you can’t fully trust the screens for ETAs either.  

I know I am not alone in experiencing this because once an older gentleman and myself had to escape the line together to board our bus. He, the bus driver, and I ended up conversing over how ridiculous the whole situation had become. 

Off the top of my head I know that GPS tracking buses with their ETAs accurately shown on screens would help, and entries not disappearing until the bus has actually left. I wish the 96S and 96E could share Door 18, but then Door 17 would be underutilized with its 96A or 96L arriving collectively every 30 minutes, while the 96S and 96E interchangeably would arrive every 5 to 10 minutes, maybe even simultaneously. It would help to maybe add a third door, but there isn’t any extra room down there. My solution of waiting till last may not be the most fair, but it’s the best for me. 

Just one more week and then I can take the Montréal Métro exclusively, which while not perfect, is a far better user experience than my current commute. 

[faceplant-ux]

Big Dog, Big City, Bad UX

Today I confirmed with the ophthalmologist (that’s an eye-disorder-doctor/surgeon) that my 7-year-old Bernese mutt, Astrid, would need surgery. A benign mass has been steadily growing on the rim of her eyelid for several months, and $proghub and I were referred to this specialist after the mass got one millimetre too bold. The most emotionally trying part of the process was not the steep cost, nor the fact that the mass was actually two masses, or what would evidently be a painful recovery period for Astrid in the cone-of-shame. It was getting to the drop-in clinic in the first place. 

Here were the parameters we were dealing with:

First, the ophthalmology clinic of choice received patients from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. 

Second, we didn’t have a car. The TTC (subway system in Toronto) allows pets to travel on leash or in carriers during off-peak hours, defined as “before 6:30 am; 10 am to 3:30 pm; after 7pm”. Obviously it’s easier to bend this rule with a smaller dog in a travel crate. Astrid weighed 60 pounds.

Third, according to Google Maps, it would take me 50 minutes-1 hour to get to the clinic from home by transit. Based on previous rides on that very route, I knew delays and increased traffic would be likely.

Finally, taking an Uber/Lyft instead was estimated to be a 15 minute journey at a budget-friendly price of $18. 

Conclusion: For maximum sleep and minimum transit time, take a Lyft at 7:30 am, arrive at the clinic before 8 am, and expect to wait about 2 hours at most. Cool. 

In the past I had no issues riding in a Lyft with Astrid, so long as I called ahead to let them know I’d have a large dog with me. A driver had the right to decline the ride in the interest of comfort or cleanliness, but so far none of them had.

Except today. I called the first driver right away as soon as we were matched and they apologized profusely for not wanting to take the dog. No hard feelings. But then the driver hid out nearby anyway, and didn’t cancel the ride despite my calling him back asking him to do so. It was impossible for me to cancel the ride now that he had “arrived” and was “waiting”. He let the wait timer finish before cancelling the ride and driving off. Annoying; that was three minutes I had to wait before calling another ride.

The second driver agreed to take Astrid when I confirmed over the phone. Great! He arrived, saw her, and said he had misunderstood, and he couldn’t take her. And then again, didn’t cancel the ride right away waiting for the five minute timer to run out — thankfully he figured it out eventually after rolling down the window to ask if I could cancel it (again, I couldn’t), and cancelled after two minutes.

While writing this post I discovered that I was charged a $5.00 no-show fee for allegedly standing up the first driver, which I had to get refunded from Lyft in the form of credit. 

UX questions abound:

Why was it difficult for both drivers to cancel the ride in the Lyft app? 

In the case of the first driver, did they intentionally let the timer run to 0:00 in order to get a no-show cancellation fee out of me? I would have likely missed the fact that I had been charged a no-show fee.

Why does Lyft’s chat bot automatically issue the refund as Lyft credit rather than a credit card refund? I feel I could have gotten in touch with customer support to get the latter, but $5 was a trivial enough amount to not do so. Are there risks with giving the customer the choice of how they would like to receive their refund?

It was now 8:03 a.m. I called one of the local cab companies. They had always accepted large dogs; I even double-checked over the phone with the dispatcher! The driver arrived after the promised 5-10 minute wait. I herded Astrid into the car and heard the tail end of a conversation over the comm, “—listen if you aren’t comfortable and don’t want to have a pet say something, we’re here to help!” I pretended not to hear. The driver asked if I had a cover for the dog since the seats were vinyl. Um, no? He fetched a jacket from his trunk. “Someone forgot it, just put it under your dog.” Fine. 

It was a silent ride, except for the radio going off again: “How long is your fare?” "I’ll get back to you later,” my driver discreetly responded.

We got to the clinic and it was now nearly quarter to nine. I wiped off the back seats as best as I could and tossed the now furry, dusty jacket into the trunk. Astrid and I entered a packed clinic, the many waiting room chairs full of dogs and their owners. It was something to behold; at least half of the poor canines were wearing cones, and half of those coned canines had eye stitches. What was Astrid in for? I wondered.

The reception cheerfully informed me of the paperwork I had to fill, and as I felt my frayed nerves calming she added, “It’ll be a 3 to 4 hour wait.”

“OK, that’s fine!”, I said in my typical singsong. Yet inside:

I killed time by walking Astrid for about 2 hours. The only place that had set out a dog water bowl was the local cannabis shop. They invited Astrid inside and cooed over her eagerly. That experience alone made the morning much less crappy for me.

The cab ride I had taken reminded me of a time when $proghub was ushering Astrid over to dog boarding, and his cab driver hit another car. He blamed our dog for distracting him, despite her already having long finished her investigative sniffing.

You can provide for a large dog’s every need, but societal discrimination remains:

Finding an apartment that will accept your dog. Ontario law states that “no-pets” clauses are void (huzzah! 🙌), but that doesn’t stop landlords from putting them into leases or denying your application once they find out you have one. $proghub and I are moving to Montréal, and in Québec there isn’t an equivalent law, which means we have to search extra hard for a place that will accept Astrid. Many ads will say 1) no pets, 2) cats only, no dogs, or 3) cats and small dogs under 1x pounds accepted, no large dogs. This sucks because Astrid is non-destructive, quiet, and trained to do her business outside — she’ll even actively seek out *grass* over concrete, which we didn’t teach her — and that is what most landlords want anyway. 9/10 likelihood the yapping dog in your condo is a small one. Bonus points if it’s a Pomeranian or a Shiba. Both are wonderful breeds, but improperly socialized, well...

No dogs in many public spaces. This is more understandable. But how many times have you been in a store and seen a small dog in a purse or under one’s arm? Meanwhile the large dog stays tied to a pole outside, susceptible to theft (especially at risk he/she is outgoing and easily bribed)! 

Lack of transportation options, without a car. A lot of transit systems don’t accept pets unless they’re in carriers, which is impossible with a large dog. Thankfully, GO Transit recently changed their rules after a successful pilot in summer of 2018 where they allowed leashed dogs on their buses and trains with restrictions (pets needed to stay on the lower level of the vehicles, among other common-sense measures). And as already mentioned, the TTC accepts leashed dogs during off-peak hours. My in-laws live in Fort Erie, so if we want to take Astrid to visit them, they drive the 2+ hours to Toronto to pick up the three of us. Except in summer, when GO Transit is running their limited Niagara train service, and we get to take our pooch along. 

Lack of off-leash dog parks. The nearest off-leash dog park to us, despite living in bustling North York, is about a 40-minute walk down Yonge Street, requiring passage underneath a bridge supporting what is allegedly the busiest highway in North America, the 401 (Business Insider). Once $proghub and I decided to bring Astrid to the magical Sherwood Park in Toronto, which took us about 50 minutes by transit on a weekend. Constituents in my neighbourhood petitioned for an off-leash area to be placed in one of the three(!!) parks in my area, all within a 1 km radius of each other, and one of my neighbours, a seasoned arbitrator, even put together some costing for fencing solutions. The proposal was turned down. To add insult to injury last mayoral election, the leading council candidate in my area, a young mother endorsed by the then current, retiring councillor, promised to install a dog park. That dream dissipated once the retiring councillor changed his mind on retiring and promptly beat her in re-election. So many dogs, big and small, in my neighbourhood, with nowhere to play.

What to do? The solution to all my big-dog woes is to be less eco-friendly, of course! 

Seriously though!  If I buy a house, which occupies more land per family than an apartment, I can avoid all pet-landlord issues by not having a landlord!  Since public transit and cabs/rideshares don’t perfectly accommodate my dog, I can save the frustration by having Astrid drool outside the window of my very own Bonewagon!

Sounds ridiculous, right? For the first 3 years of Astrid’s life, we lived in a large 2-bedroom apartment with plenty of space for her to roam. Around the back of the building, there was a large, forested area that she happily explored (and pooped in). The vet was a very short walk away, cabs or friends’ cars were available for short journeys and driving lessons, and the in-laws lived much closer so picking us up took about half the time.

However, circumstances changed, as they do. We moved back to Toronto for me to finish my degree. The cost of rent in Toronto was nearly twice that of Waterloo, and our living quarters changed from about 1000 square feet to 615. Because of the extensive, pet-friendly transit system and the cost of practising driving with the car share, I let my G2 license expire rather than practise intermittently and nervously towards my full G license, since we wouldn’t be buying a car even if I had attained it. Of course Astrid was coming with us — we weren’t going to be one of those families that abandoned their dog through moving. 

Our building is extremely pet friendly, housing Great Danes, Labs and Huskies, and even a sweet, massive Saint Bernard, along with many more “apartment-sized” breeds. Without a doubt, the community is richer for it. People know each other by their dogs’ names. Lobby bathroom accidents are extremely rare. When a resident puts their old dog to sleep, the loss is also felt by neighbours, because you’ve seen that dog for the past few years. You’ve watched them become all warty and grey and scabby and slow — they’d wag their butts when you’d pet them, in spite of their arthritic hips.

Owning a large dog is a pretty normal North American thing to do. I just wish that as dog owners, we didn’t have to jump through so many hoops in order to enjoy the friendship of these unconditionally loyal creatures. With all the shit we humans put ourselves through, we could use the extra love.

Dog tax:

[faceplant-ux]

I’d been thinking about picking back up blogging for a while now — the health benefits of keeping a diary, the potential positive impact on career, and having a little corner of the Internet to candidly entertain interesting problems were big motivators.

If you’re like me however, there was some Inciting Incident that sparked your first post. For me, it was migrating my domain name over from Wix to Adobe Portfolio.

Now, I’m not a programmer like my husband, but I am a problem solver and can read directions. So following Adobe’s nice instructions I made my merry way over to eNom, and changed my A and CNAME records to the IP address provided. Within a couple of hours the change had fully propagated and my domain name was directing to my shiny new portfolio! I did it!  Programmer-Husband, you’ve been replaced, I CAN DO MY OWN IT!

A couple of days later though, I realized I wasn’t getting emails anymore when I had applied for a job on a company’s website and failed to get some form of receipt. This happened several times before I clued in, horrified. Those of you who are familiar with web things are already seeing where I went wrong, right?  

I messaged $proghub in a play-it-cool panic. By play-it-cool, I mean I frantically spammed him in Hangouts: HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO STUPID, WHY DID I MIGRATE WITHOUT YOU.

Yeah, my GSuite mailbox had also been set up through Wix. By removing anything and everything that said ‘wix’ in my eNom settings, I also broke my e-mail receiving capabilities. For several days, I had possibly been missing out on interview requests and job offers, after meticulously playing the long game: getting a free month of LinkedIn Premium, sifting through profiles of my dream companies, requesting connections, and building rapport with strangers. You know, perfectly legit job-searching activities that in any other context would make me not-so-legit. 

Bless the Google I found a post by 368 Durham detailing my exact situation. From there I bounced my process off $proghub to discover the meaning of MX records. Another quick trip to eNom and an hour of nail-biting later I received the four test emails I had sent myself from my personal account. Apparently there was also the additional step of migrating my billing plan to GSuite, but I opted instead to take the lazyman’s route of merely cancelling my billing and letting 2020 Ashley figure it out.

So after all that, what did we learn this week?

1. Do not migrate domains/emails when actively applying for jobs. Also note that the two might be intertwined, and you may need to migrate both. 2. Be nice to your tech support. Marrying them is a plus.

Yes, OK, but what did we really learn?

1. Have faith in your problem solving abilities and don’t be afraid to ask for help. You may have seen this in motivational posters and other blog posts but it merits repeating: if you are asked to do something you only know vaguely about, try anyway. This maybe doesn’t roll as well with high-stakes situations but if you can surround yourself with a network of supporters that want to see you succeed, challenges become much more approachable. I jokingly called upon my husband for help, but had another programmer friend studying UX design who reassured me during this process, “Oh, domains are 100% bad UX. Just a bad time in general.” 

2. If the user of your web-based service is someone unfamiliar with how web services work, having extra information at hand without being imposing is the kind thing to do. It was easy to detach my domain name from my old portfolio, and thanks to Adobe Portfolio’s instructions was equally as pleasant connecting my domain name with the new one. However, I would have appreciated a heads-up from Wix in the form of a confirmation message stating, “You have successfully disconnected your domain. Your email *@ashleymuir.com is still plugged into Wix...” And at first glance, why should Wix even care when you’re straight up leaving them and cancelling your subscription? 

Is courteous offboarding of a client in a business’ best interest? Should I, as a user, have been entitled to some sort of “We’re sorry to see you go!” page that included links to proposed next steps (which could have included, signing back up)? When I left one of my previous jobs I had to request an exit interview. It made me feel that the company had never appreciated me and didn’t care that I was leaving, despite having stuck out a toxic situation for their benefit. While an exit interview and offboarding documentation are functionally different, I would argue their emotional impact is the same: to recognize that things don’t always work out, and encourage the ending of a business relationship on a professional note while wishing the ex-employee/ex-customer future success. 

I'm relatively new to web hosting and domains and stuff. $proghub set it up for me the first time. I tried to do it on my own and felt stupid doing it. Just like Don Norman predicted in his book, The Design of Everyday Things, my inclination was to blame myself for lack of knowledge about the technology I was dealing with. 

It’s a pretty naïve thought on my part, but wouldn’t it be nice if everyone had everyone else’s back? 

My name is Ashley Muir and I’m trying to become a UX Designer. This is my blog, faceplant UX, where I overdramatically document the more murderous light-hearted struggles of being a newb in an emerging field.