So far, I’m impressed! What is your take? Dig it, dislike it, can’t find stuff, is everything there?
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So far, I’m impressed! What is your take? Dig it, dislike it, can’t find stuff, is everything there?
Transit Sleuth 
It’s actually the homepage that’s up right now, the other pages on the site (at least the ones I checked) still use the old design.
When this was announced a few weeks ago, I dropped everything I was doing and wrote an e-mail saying I felt it was wrong that TriMet was spending the money on a new web design at a time they’re eliminating service. Imagine my surprise when someone with the TriMet department that handled the change wrote back! I thought I was going to get a standard form response from a generic auto-respond mailbox. That e-mail also said they are also working on a text version of the site for mobile interfaces, which will also work well for people like me who use dial-up.
After using it the last 10 days or so, so far, so good. I almost thought I wasn’t going to like some of the changes, but that was just a first impression.
Likes –
– Looks nice
– Pulldown menus are actually very usable (not the case for many many websites)
– The huge menu for all of the routes
– Links seem a lot closer; fewer pages to nav through.
Cons –
– No clear delineation between unlinked and linked text. Linked text should be underlined or made into a different color. A hover-over doesn’t cut it; I shouldn’t have to play mind sweeper just to find the link.
– Like many sites these days, TriMet made gray-on-gray as part of its color palette, which <a href="http://strollers.baby-gaga.com/maclaren-triumph.php">can be very hard to read</a>. I’m not sure who the geniuses who always come up with this idea are; but it seems like it should be common sense that this will not provide sufficient contrast. Your tag cloud is another great example of gray-on-gary that is very difficult to read.
Overall I think it looks nice, though.
I dig both of these positives:
– The huge menu for all of the routes
– Links seem a lot closer; fewer pages to nav through.
…and all the cons you mentioned are on the money. I’m not a fan of the gray on gray.
I can tell you that the new "trinet" site has plenty of glitches, I can’t get on it from my usual computer!
What browser are you using? I’ve viewed it in IE 7, IE 8, Firefix 3 & 3.x, Chrome, Safari, Konqueror, and Opera from several different computers. Whatever it is, it isn’t TriMet’s fault, something elsewhere must be causing the issue.
I’m not sure who the geniuses who always come up with this idea are; but it seems like it should be common sense that this will not provide sufficient contrast.
Valuable information and excellent design you got here! I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts and time into the stuff you post!! Thumbs up