Jeff Woelker : Chicago SEO, SEM, and Online Marketing Consultant

I haven’t checked the Chicago Transit Authority’s Trip Planner in a while, but it looks like they’ve done a bit of a redesign on the interface.

The new interface is a nice grid layout (point #4 on my recommendation list) as opposed to the previous layout, pictured below. They’ve added some nice MaqQuest-like iconography and moved the form over to the left, making it easier to jump right in to get directions. They still haven’t added any visual mapping of where you’ll be going during your journey across the city, but that’s still not imperative I guess if you fully trust the CTA to get you from point A to point B. It would still be nice to have a map of the beginning and end points at least so you have SOME orientation of where you are in the city.

I’d still like them to add the ability to export the directions via email or SMS, both to myself or to a friend. That would make it easy for me to tell my friends or relatives who are unfamiliar with chicago transit how to get around easily without having to explain the interface to them or give exact directions.

Overall, it’s a great next step. Clean design, CSS based layout. There are still a few things I’d like to see (embedding directions, sharing with friends, easier use on my cell phone*), but I can look past those things to the next iteration of the transit site. Thanks CTA!

* You can make it easier to use on my cellphone by either hiding the upper navigation (shown in the image below with CSS disabled) all together so I can skip right to the form to get directions, or providing me a link to jump right to the form “Click here to jump to directions”. Otherwise, I have to scroll past all the navigation items to get to the form.