For this I will be analysing my train ticket:
Font choice:
The font used is called "Rail Alphabet" which is similar to Helvetica and Arial, though Rail Alphabet is not available to the public. It is not printed onto the ticket with ink, but burnt onto the ticket. It has been used in the UK since the 60's. I think it was chosen as it is a basic font which is easy to read. It's purpose is to contain information that needs to be shown to train conductors, so it doesn't need to be decorative.
The font used is called "Rail Alphabet" which is similar to Helvetica and Arial, though Rail Alphabet is not available to the public. It is not printed onto the ticket with ink, but burnt onto the ticket. It has been used in the UK since the 60's. I think it was chosen as it is a basic font which is easy to read. It's purpose is to contain information that needs to be shown to train conductors, so it doesn't need to be decorative.
Hierarchy:
Where there is some sort of hierarchy on the ticket (headings for each piece of information in a smaller font than the information itself), it appears messy and when looking at the ticket, nothing immediately catches the eye. Only once you get used to using these tickets (for me, on a daily basis) do you know where to look first (the from/to section on the bottom left). The only information that is made bold to stand out is "Single" on the bottom right hand corner.
Where there is some sort of hierarchy on the ticket (headings for each piece of information in a smaller font than the information itself), it appears messy and when looking at the ticket, nothing immediately catches the eye. Only once you get used to using these tickets (for me, on a daily basis) do you know where to look first (the from/to section on the bottom left). The only information that is made bold to stand out is "Single" on the bottom right hand corner.
Usability:
As mentioned before, if someone uses these tickets often, they do get used to the rather cluttered layout of the tickets. For passengers using the tickets, anyone who's vision isn't very good may struggle with this as it's hard to focus when looking at it, and there seems to be little space to increase font size. For train conductors and other staff, if contains a lot of informtation releveant for them that means nothing to the passenger which could easily be resolved by changing the layout.
As mentioned before, if someone uses these tickets often, they do get used to the rather cluttered layout of the tickets. For passengers using the tickets, anyone who's vision isn't very good may struggle with this as it's hard to focus when looking at it, and there seems to be little space to increase font size. For train conductors and other staff, if contains a lot of informtation releveant for them that means nothing to the passenger which could easily be resolved by changing the layout.
I have tried to keep all information the same but make it look clearer and less messy. I used Arial for the redesign, and kept the orginal hierarchy, but took it a little step further to make it easier to be read.
Nice analysis and I genuinely learned something new from this. Why do they burn the letters on? Do you think they need to use a font that's more segmented to do this? Interesting.
ReplyDeleteYour redesign addresses some of the hierarchy issues well, but there's still more room to play around with it...go on, have fun with it!