State of the art - Erik Olofsson

Since other members of the group had already chosen to look in to some of the mobile apps currently available for assisting people during their travels, I choose to look in to what services are currently available for people not in possession of or not interested in using a smartphone. I’ve mainly looked at the SL website and the company’s other services since predicted searches like “resa I Stockholm”, “tunnelbana Stockholm”, “transportation Stockholm” and “travel in Stockholm” all lead to SL’s main webpage or sites who links the traffic to it. And therefore most likely it being the first thing users are coming in contact with when in search for information about transportation in Stockholm. This is a screenshot of the main page which you are met with, it should be noted that the site comes in both English and Swedish versions. This is a screenshot of the Swedish version since some of the functions like “Mitt SL” and the ability to buy a ticket are not present in the international versions. This could possibly be since English speakers aren’t expected to be regular customers, instead the English site tells the user to download the company’s app or use one of the more traditional ways of paying for a ticket.

Both versions of the site provides a lot of information including the timetables of the different lines, current deviations, ways of acquiring a ticket, terms of use and so on. Along with this also comes an interactive map built with a trip planner who can take in to consideration things like walking distance, transportation type, intermediate stops and so on. The website also points users towards a twenty-four hour phone number which they can call for added support

While trying the site it became apparent that a lot of thought had gone in to designing the user interface and I personally didn’t have a problem navigating through the different menus to find what I was searching for. The state of the art analysis I’ve conducted with the expectations of uncovering the flaws with the website of SL has instead made it apparent of the possible improvements that could be made to the mobile apps which I’m a frequent user of. Neither of the popular apps “SL-biljetter” or “Res I Sthlm” have the same sophisticated trip planner as the website provides, shows relevant news or have the options of managing ones SL-card. So in conclusion I hypostasize that people who only have access to an computer and an internet connection in many cases are receiving a more expansive service that the smartphone users (with the obvious downside of being stationary) and that these services could be added to the mobile users for a better user experience.