WRITTEN ON February 20th, 2009 BY Ruth Kennedy AND STORED IN Design: user-oriented, What do we want?

Yes, there are things about UK travel websites that are annoying (eg why does The Trainline INSIST that you select ’00’ minutes, when you have indicated that you want to find a train that departs or arrives on the hour??).

BUT nothing beats a bit of mystery shopping to remind you that things really aren’t so bad in the UK.

Trying to book a family trip, I have spent two evenings soooooooo frustrated by the complications, obfuscations and non-perspicacity of the SNCF website, and the fact that the TGV site crashes the whole time (both French). And if you thought pricing policy on UK trains was difficult to understand, this is easily matched by the Italian site Trentitalia.com, where efforts to work out what fares you should select leave you absolutely bamboozled.

3 Responses to “Mystery shopping can lift the spirits”

 
Public Strategist wrote on February 20th, 2009 4:56 am :

All of which is, of course, the critical difference between mystery shopping and, well, shopping. It’s a bit like the long history of awards given to websites which look beautiful and highly usable in abstract, but which reduce you to a gibbering wreck if there is actually something specific you want to find or get done. The emotional frustration of not being able to do something which you actually want to do cannot be reproduced by pretending to go through a process because somebody is paying you to do so.

Bruce wrote on February 25th, 2009 1:27 am :

The Deutsche Bahn website is simpler to use than Trainline and has UK timetables.

Tom Chiverton wrote on February 27th, 2009 3:17 am :

Trainline ? Don’t use it. http://traintimes.org.uk/ is much easier, quicker, and has a working mobile version.