Summary:
Indian Railways re-launched their site with a reservation module. The website
is functionally sound, but it can improve its revenue and utilization significantly
by attending to its business strategy and usability problems.
It was heartening
to see Indian Railways launching a website to make online reservations. Railways,
one of the oldest institutions have come a long way since the first rail run
from Bori Bunder to Thane on April 16, 1853. We thought that it would be interesting
to analyze the website of an organization, with whom most of us have interacted
at least once in our life.
Well there
are plenty pf URLs to reach the railways (www.indianrailways.com,
www.indiarail.gov.in,
www.irctc.co.in,
www.indiarailways.gov.in
and many more regional ones.). These do not redirect to the same site either.
Lets take up www.indianrailways.com as our reference. (As the online reservation
site asks to register even to search for a train).
- Task Efficiency and Usability
First things first: Its common sense that most of the people access this
site for making inquiry or reservation. Instead, when you open the page you
find Bholu, the elephant waiting to welcome you underneath a pop up
ad. If enquiry and reservations is the primary purpose of the site, the same
should be available as the first thing on the homepage (see this
list of Travel and Reservation sites which practice this). Slogans takes
precedence like, "Welcome to Indian Railway's Reservation Enquiry Web
Site”, "Amadeus is my most preferred CRS" (What's CRS?) and
"Designed by CRIS" are annoying.
Automation should simplify life: Sadly, it is usually not the case. Station
Names and Codes are classic examples. If you want to book a ticket from Bangalore
to Delhi, you should know the station codes (Bangalore happens to be SBC).
On the brighter side, the site lets you type first few letters to get all
the station names, which begin, with these alphabets. With technology, advancing
fast the site should offer 'part match' and 'sounds like' matches.
People travel between Cities and not Stations: If you choose a metropolis
say, Bombay as destination (i.e. BB as code) you will get trains terminating
at Lokmanya Terminus and Bandra Terminus. Although, they are stations of the
same city, they may confuse a novice or a traveler unfamiliar with the city.
A simple format like "Bombay: Lokmanya Terminus" would avoid the
confusion.
System should be smart: It should suggest alternatives, as the booking-window
clerk does. For example if I do not find a train to say Bombay, the site can
suggest another train which passes Kalyan (a neighboring station) without
touching Bombay and a connection from Kalyan to Bombay (which may be a Suburban
Transport)
- Online Revenues
Worldwide, travel companies, banks, and airlines are going online to cut costs.
They are also offering rebates for booking online. The cost of running businesses
online is coming down. This happens because in the long term one saves on
real estate and manpower costs. On the contrary, Indian Railways is one of
the few sites charging a surcharge for delivery and use of credit card.
Indian Railways can invest in a good personalization and customization engine/service.
It can help in targeted advertising and additional revenues.
A sizeable number of foreign tourists travel through Indian Railways. A separate
section containing information on India, Popular Destinations, online reservations
for Special trains like Palace on Wheels, Royal Orient
etc, is needed. On the plus side, it contains information about their agents.
Currently, the online booking for these trains is with TravBuzz.
Railways can tie up with RTDC and integrate it with their online bookings.
- Support the Unsaid Need
Any design attempt identifies the unsaid need. Lets say that the stated need
is to Travel from Mumbai to New Delhi. Having experienced travel to unknown
destination, we can deduce the unstated needs. Hence, the unstated need can
be information on places of interest, transportation from station to city,
pre-paid taxi stands, places to see which are around Delhi and 2-3 hours of
Train travel (which means getting more business), dining and medical facilities
onboard, preferred hotels/transport etc.
- Communication and the Brand
An object should communicate its purpose just by looking at it. The word
railways bring the image of a steam engine landscape rushing past comes to
our mind. Most of us have grown up seeing the steam engine in the circle as
the official railway logo.
Remember them being embossed on the berths? Most of us as children have a
fond memories of railway engines and train travel. The site does not cash
on this factor. The site has the Mascot Bholu complete with a lantern and
a green flag instead of the logo. How can a mascot take over the logo? To
add to it, the CRIS logo is more prominent than the parent brand (Indian Railways).
- Voice of the Site
The site should review its taxonomy and content. You see a link on top "Official
Railway Website" and you wonder who's site have you been surfing
all this while? (The link connects you to "Ministry of Railway"
website). There are pleonasms like "Online Website" or the difficult
ones like "New Query", "Vox Populi" which can simply be
"Search Again" and "Comments and Feedback" respectively
Taking
it further...
If railways
decide to take this site a step further, they can consider incorporating customization
in the site. Features, like saving my most frequented destination pair, day/night
travel, class of travel and berth preferences.
It is a good
effort. Well begun but long way to go. After all, in e-years, it is circa 1853
and it is the first run from Bori Bunder to Thane. Bori Bunder, oh that's why
the Bombay VT station code is BB.
Some links
on Indian Railways
