Analysis of the content and information architecture of websites in public transport travel planning in the context of wayfinding and passenger experience on the examples of London, Amsterdam and Lisbon

Abstract

Aim: The objective of this study is to analyse the websites of transport organisers in selected European cities and agglomerations (London, Lisbon, Amsterdam) with regard to the information they contain and their usefulness in the travel planning process. The study will also examine selected aspects of user experience. The results were then contrasted with Geert Hofstede's cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance. Research methods: The primary objective of this study was to ascertain the extent to which the hierarchy of information and the content of information published on these sites are contingent on specific cultural avoidance considerations. The selection of cities was undertaken with the objective of representing high, medium and low levels of this variable. In order to achieve the objectives, the method of content analysis and information hierarchy was applied on the basis of the author's observation form. Key results: The conclusion of the study indicates that the Transport for London (UK) website demonstrates the most effective user experience design, though it also exhibits several deficiencies, including performance issues. In contrast, the most intricacies in the information architecture appear on the Metrolisboa (Portugal) website, which are related to, among other things, an inadequate hierarchy of content. The hypothesis that there would be a positive correlation between the cultural dimensions surveys and the self-analyses was not confirmed. However, it was observed that the overall evaluation score is inversely proportional to the aforementioned surveys. This suggests that further analysis on a larger group of sites is warranted.

The research is part of a research project entitled: ‘Wayfinding systems in public transport and the cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance - a behavioural and semiotic analysis of selected European cities’, funded under the Miniatura 7 competition by the National Science Center, Poland.