A Gripe about the Los Angeles Metro Bike App
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Re: A Gripe about the Los Angeles Metro Bike App
#2It is definitely a bit of a pain to use and I have had issues with the bikes not being maintained. That being said its relatively easy to just switch to another one.
Much bigger problem in my opinion is that while the Metro lines are rapidly expanding they have very poor bicycle support. There is almost no space for bicycles and even on the cars that do have space it very quickly gets taken up by other people.
Re: A Gripe about the Los Angeles Metro Bike App
#3This app is super buggy. The UX has so many glitches (engineering failures).
Probably the biggest UX snafu that I found is that one can unlock a bike across town by mistake and then get billed $2000 for it getting lost/stolen. Take what Lyft did and copy that.
This is an app that is used by a lot of tourists - many of whom have minimal English skills. The UX failures are embarrassing. Whoever did this should be held responsible for breaking their SLA.
Re: A Gripe about the Los Angeles Metro Bike App
#4This app is super buggy. The UX has so many glitches (engineering failures). Probably the biggest UX snafu that I found is that one can unlock a bike across town by mistake and then get billed $2000 for it getting lost/stolen. Take what Lyft did and copy that. This is an app that is used by a lot of tourists - many of whom have minimal English skills. The UX failures are embarrassing. Whoever did this should be held…
It feels like the whole thing was built by an intern over the course of one summer. Realistically, the city is probably paying an uncompetitive wage in a very competitive market and thus hiring less-than-competent engineers to service millions and millions of people.
Re: A Gripe about the Los Angeles Metro Bike App
#5This app is super buggy. The UX has so many glitches (engineering failures). Probably the biggest UX snafu that I found is that one can unlock a bike across town by mistake and then get billed $2000 for it getting lost/stolen. Take what Lyft did and copy that. This is an app that is used by a lot of tourists - many of whom have minimal English skills. The UX failures are embarrassing. Whoever did this should be held…
It feels like the whole thing was built by an intern over the course of one summer. Realistically, the city is probably paying an uncompetitive wage in a very competitive market and thus hiring less-than-competent engineers to service millions and millions of people.
Or they contracted it out to an agency which then assigned someone to do whatever they could in 2 weeks.
React Native says web developers are automatically highly qualified app developers.
Re: A Gripe about the Los Angeles Metro Bike App
#6It would be nice if these were built with public APIs so that alternative chromes could be built around those. But the same factors that make the apps shitty make the APIs shitty, I suppose.
Re: A Gripe about the Los Angeles Metro Bike App
#7> 2. Why do I need to purchase a pass at all?
> In an ideal world, where things work like standard tech that already exists, I would attach a credit card, walk up to a bike, and get automatically charged for unlocking it/riding it. I'm trying to give you my money, Los Angeles!
For the same reason any other business offers a discount for buying in advance / in bulk: "Revenue today" is more valuable to a seller than "a little revenue today, and maybe a little more at a later date".
Re: A Gripe about the Los Angeles Metro Bike App
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
It feels like the whole thing was built by an intern over the course of one summer. Realistically, the city is probably paying an uncompetitive wage in a very competitive market and thus hiring less-than-competent engineers to service millions and millions of people.
Or they contracted it out to an agency which then assigned someone to do whatever they could in 2 weeks. React Native says web developers are automatically highly qualified app developers.
What makes app developers so special? The only extra requirement is that you don't break the rules of Apple/Google's sandbox play area, else you can release whatever garbage you want.
Re: A Gripe about the Los Angeles Metro Bike App
#9It is definitely a bit of a pain to use and I have had issues with the bikes not being maintained. That being said its relatively easy to just switch to another one. Much bigger problem in my opinion is that while the Metro lines are rapidly expanding they have very poor bicycle support. There is almost no space for bicycles and even on the cars that do have space it very quickly gets taken up by other people.
There are some bike rooms but not nearly enough imo. Every station should have a perfectly safe place to stow a bike where it can't be robbed.
Re: A Gripe about the Los Angeles Metro Bike App
#10This app is super buggy. The UX has so many glitches (engineering failures). Probably the biggest UX snafu that I found is that one can unlock a bike across town by mistake and then get billed $2000 for it getting lost/stolen. Take what Lyft did and copy that. This is an app that is used by a lot of tourists - many of whom have minimal English skills. The UX failures are embarrassing. Whoever did this should be held…
as crappy as the app is, using a tap card on subscription usually works like a charm (although bike return doesn’t always register perfectly, creating overbilling issues that customer service does resolve for you).