RAC Traffic report: More technology isn’t always better

I love tech. I truly do. In fact, I’ve got a severe condition called “gadgetitis”, which becomes particularly acute around tech expos and Christmas time where all sorts of new techy goodies are released. And I love beta versions, even though they’re flakier than Paris Hilton. I love sneak previews, even if the app turns out to only be worthy of the TechCrunch deadpool. It’s a terrible addiction and as far as I know, there are no cures.

By the same logic, I almost always say that the more technology, the better. Almost.

Today’s an exception. This is my plea to the RAC, once my most reliable source of up-to-date traffic news, to step away from the Flash animations and return to this old technology called text. The wonderful thing about text is that it’s clear, succint and doesn’t require any fancy plugins. It’s easy to use when on the road with only a phone at hand.

RAC Traffic website goes Flash - ack!

This new animation completely fails from a usability point of view:

It doesn’t respect the KISS rule: Keeping it simple means it’s more widely accessible. Not everyone has Flash enabled. My iPhone certainly doesn’t. :S It’s utterly useless to someone who isn’t local. Very few cities, towns and villages are identified, no matter how close you zoom in. Why aren’t the primary non-motorway roads identified? It’s certainly not because the map is too cluttered! The usefulness of the information displayed is questionable, especially in comparison to the detailed alternative that used to be available. Is the slowdown due to sheer traffic density or are we dealing with a 6 car pile-up where the motorway might get closed? That’s far more likely to affect my decision of what to do next than telling me vehicles are travelling at 10mph. The colours, which represent severity of traffic, aren’t accompanied by a legend, so the user has to guess what the scale is!

With the holidays coming and more people on motorways driving long distances to see family and friends, it can be a lifeline, helping us make a quick decision on whether a detour is needed. I’m afraid that the RAC designers didn’t do their homework here. Back to the drawing board, guys!

[Crossposted to the Taptu blog here!]

Tags: design, gadgets, iphone, mobile, rac, road congestion, traffic, usability, user experience

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Mobile Tech, Web & Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “RAC Traffic report: More technology isn’t always better”

Phil Roberts says:
January 2, 2008 at 8:44 pm

Once again demonstrating that women and technolgy do not sit happily together!

Vero says:
January 3, 2008 at 3:29 am

You’re all talk and no balls, Phil, but thanks anyways for the comment. Happy new year!

that canadian girl » Blog Archive » I’m a camel, I’m a balloon, I’m an entirely Flash website! says:
June 25, 2008 at 2:19 pm

[...] my one gripe is that the entire site was developed as a gigantor Flash animation. I’ve been known to whinge about Flash before, and I’m just not a fan of sites that have no deep-linking or easy ways to navigate. Plus, it [...]

Steve says:
October 28, 2008 at 4:12 pm

I totally agree i HATE the RAC’s once reliable site! And that god-awful advert that dominates the screen everytime the page loads takes some doing to shift.

I’m a bloke and think that it should revert back to the orginal, i have stopped using it.

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