Melbourne Transport released

— 3 minute read

Melbourne Transport released

What is it?

Melbourne Transport is a smartphone app that provides a simple on-the-go utility to Melburnians: It answers the question, “How do I get from here to there by public transport?”

Melbourne Transport main screen All you need to do is tell it where you want to go, press the “Go” button, and it tells you a number of routes - a combination of train, tram, bus and walking options.

[You can optionally tell it where to leave from, if you want to leave from somewhere other than your current location; and tell it when to leave if you want to leave later.]

Now available on Android: http://bit.ly/melbtrans
Coming soon for Blackberry 10, and iOS - pending their app store review processes.

Design Philosophy

Melbourne Transport results screen It’s the wild colour scheme that freaks me. Every time you try an’ operate one of these weird black controls which are labelled in black on a black background, a small black light lights up black to tell you you’ve done it. What is this? Some kind of intergalactic hyper-hearse? Zaphod, on the importance of a good user interface.

Thankfully, you shall find that we have heeded Zaphod’s sagely pearls of wisdom, and strived to make the experience clean and obvious. Safe to say, no instruction manual is required for this.

In the Pipeline

Meet John. John lives in Oakleigh. He works in the city, two days a week. He also attends classes at Monash University Caulfield campus, three days a week.

John cannot use the official app from Public Transport Victoria, as it is for iOS only. His mates who use iPhones tell him that the PTV app does not work most of the time anyway.
So John starts using Melbourne Transport on his Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and he absolutely loves it.

After using the app for a month or so, he finds that he is punching in the same three locations - “Parliament Railway Station,” “Caulfield Railway Station,” and his street address in Oakleigh - for almost every single one of his trips. John wishes that the app was even easier to use, because he has rather large fingers, and often accidentally hits the selection one up, or one down, from the list of suggestions that appears after typing in an address.

true story Thankfully the guys developing Melbourne Transport had the same problem too - after all, one of the reasons that we developed this app was to scratch an itch. Turns out that one of them, yours truly, suffers from digitus magnus himself, and started tinkering, for the sake of his digitus magnus brethren. Lo and behold, Starred Locations were born.

Coming soon: Screen shots of Starred Locations in action!