Introduction

Can using a computer be injurious to one's health? If you're trying to book a particular rail journey via a particular website in the UK, the answer is a resounding "Yes", according to this article I wrote in February 2008. There are so many ticket price variations in the UK that you need either the patience of a saint or a PhD in maths to work out the cheapest option. Alternatively, there are websites you can go to that will work out the cheapest option, which usually involves buying several tickets rather than two (outbound and return). This article describes a ridiculously-designed process and interface for booking a rail ticket, and customer support that cannot seem to cope if the issue you’re raising is not on their flowchart (I presume they have a flowchart).

Where this is relevant for Computer studies is that systems are designed by people who entertain certain assumptions, which are then baked in. That’s why a lot of user testing is required if you’re to avoid the sort of unintended consequences described here.

Anyway, here is the original article, complete with a conversation that severely tested my usually placid nature.

Booking a rail ticket — or trying to

This is what I had to do a few days ago, and although I often book my tickets online, on this occasion it was nightmarish. Well, it was like being in the Twilight Zone. Let me tell you the whole sorry tale. Read it and weep -- and perhaps pass on to your students how not to design an online "experience".

Types of ticket

At first, everything went quite smoothly. Well, smoothly-ish. You get a choice of 4 types of return ticket:

• Standard open ("Standard" is the euphemism employed to denote second class)

• First Open

• First + Breakfast

• First Inclusive

Apart from the different levels of service associated with each of these, there are also differences in price: from the ludicrously expensive to the eye-watering. Let's put it this way: it is actually cheaper to fly in many cases than to use the rail services. So much for encouraging us to look after the environment. But let's press on.

Consumer choice

The fun really begins when you click on a button which informs you that two single tickets might be cheaper than a return ticket.  Why? Because you are then confronted with a choice of 30 ticket types for each part of the journey, ie outward and return. That's right: you have to choose 2 tickets from a choice of 60.

A rotten user interface

Now, some tickets aren't valid at certain times of the day, and this is indicated. But does that make the process any easier? Well, no, because you have to keep scrolling up and down to see if you have checked the correct column -- because the lines separating the columns are white, on a light blue background. In fact, you only really know whether or not you have made the right choice when you click on "Continue" and get taken to a confirmation page.

Differences in ticket types

So what are the differences between some of these ticket types? Some are only able to be used on the train you specify. If you are delayed getting to the station for your return journey, that's your tough luck because you will have to buy a new ticket to get back. However, you can pay a bit more money in the first place and have a greater choice.

But there are some tickets which all have the same name apart from the letter they end with, which ranges from A to H. And the only difference between these ones is that the further up the alphabet you go, the lower the price. Many of these tickets, ie the more expensive and the cheaper ones, are available for the same journey at the same time, so the choice comes down to whether you want to save money or plough some of your hard-earned cash into the coffers of a company that appears to be incapable of simplifying a process that is actually -- or should be -- quite straightforward.

A crisis of confidence can be costly in terms of time

OK, so you manage to work your way through this labyrinth but then, in a moment of under-confidence, decide to see if a later train might not be better. Bad move! Because by doing so, you lose the choices you have just spent ages making, and are once again faced with the prospect of looking at white lines on a light blue background. Disability Discrimination Act? What's that?

After an hour of this nonsense I clicked on the "Purchase option", and submitted my card details. A page appeared telling me that I had successfully booked my journey. It also told me that my Reference Number is [blank], and that it is crucial that I keep it safe. There was no option but to phone the company...

A closed-loop conversation

Ninety minutes after I had started on this venture, I finally had confirmation that I had purchased a ticket. But then came the sting in the tail: it was a strict condition of sale that the ticket cannot be used on any train that passes through Slough -- a fact that had not been mentioned before I handed over my credit card details.

Why not? Is Slough in quarantine or something?

And the train is non-stop, so what will they do? Throw me off?

I will just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I have started reading a book I borrowed from my local library last week: The Mammoth Book of Unexplained Mysteries.

Postscript

I should point out that I almost always purchase train tickets via the web, and this is the only instance I've had of it all going horribly wrong. As far as I can recall, in six years since I wrote this article, everything has gone remarkably smoothly!