I made StationView and I would love some feedback

[cosans]

Hey,

I'm very new to the RailUK forums so go easy on me.

I wanted to create a somewhat authentic replica of the departure boards that are found at most (I think all right?) UK train stations for the web. I commute a lot and find the current layout of the departure boards a little over designed, especially when a great design is sitting on every station. So I replicated it.

I really wanna get some feedback from people that are passionate about authenticity and who know better than most what kind of interface is best when dealing with trains.

https://stationview.app/london-liverpool-street

this is my version of the classic Liverpool Street Station departure board.



I would love to hear about what I should do to make this more realistic / useable and where I might be able to strike a healthy balance. Or any feedback in general really.

Cheers
Cosans

 

[BuhSnarf]

Hi - I like this, so much clearer than national rail - the only thing I'd say is that on mobile the font is incredibly small!

 

[cosans]

Hi - I like this, so much clearer than national rail - the only thing I'd say is that on mobile the font is incredibly small!

Cheers and OK that's seriously good feedback, I will take a look at that ASAP nothing worse than having to squint at your phone to read. If you have a screenshot that'd be mega helpful if not I will give it my best shot

 

[rmHawk765]

Cheers and OK that's seriously good feedback, I will take a look at that ASAP nothing worse than having to squint at your phone to read. If you have a screenshot that'd be mega helpful if not I will give it my best shot

The font is fine for me but obviously that's with my eyes - I think the best approach would be adjustable font sizes. Here's a screenie, 6.7" phone:

Additionally I think the expected time needs to stand out more - at first I thought the time above it was the expected time, when in fact it is the time on the right under the platform.

I noticed your GitHub profile is linked at the bottom - do you have any plans to make this open-source? I might make a few contributions

Also, to point out to others - you can enter any station as the path (stationview.app/{your-station-here}) and get the board for that. On a technical note to OP - I'd rather use one /board path and specify the info by parameter with either the TIPLOC or CRS/3-Alpha code for the station, with a search function for finding a board by friendly name.

I understand this is an early draft but I think it would be great to get alternative views, as some stations have different styles of board. I'll see if I have a picture of the board at my local station, as an example.

 

[cosans]

The font is fine for me but obviously that's with my eyes - I think the best approach would be adjustable font sizes. Here's a screenie, 6.7" phone:
View attachment 201953
Additionally I think the expected time needs to stand out more - at first I thought the time above it was the expected time, when in fact it is the time on the right under the platform.

I noticed your GitHub profile is linked at the bottom - do you have any plans to make this open-source? I might make a few contributions

Also, to point out to others - you can enter any station as the path (stationview.app/{your-station-here}) and get the board for that. On a technical note to OP - I'd rather use one /board path and specify the info by parameter with either the TIPLOC or CRS/3-Alpha code for the station, with a search function for finding a board by friendly name.

I understand this is an early draft but I think it would be great to get alternative views, as some stations have different styles of board. I'll see if I have a picture of the board at my local station, as an example.

Thanks for taking a look and I completely agree, I've added a larger font size in settings that bumps the size of everything a little but I can tweak numbers and even add more sizes maybe an extra large setting.

Yeah I kinda agree about the time I will see what I can do in regards to making it pop a little more. I may open source it in the future yeah, depends on the appetite for that kind of thing

There's actually a search function on the home page you can get there by just stationview.app (I need to add some backlinks perhaps to make that clearer or perhaps the ability to search from anywhere)

I would absolutely love to get different views going for particular stations, someone suggested earls court station since it has a fantastic analog board with arrows that show the destination of the next train leaving. I would love to replicate that and other cool things like that.

Cheers again for taking a look I will continue to try and improve.

 

[rmHawk765]

I would absolutely love to get different views going for particular stations, someone suggested earls court station since it has a fantastic analog board with arrows that show the destination of the next train leaving. I would love to replicate that and other cool things like that.

A cool design for sure, but do keep in mind that Earl's Court is a LU station and there isn't really a public way to get timetable and positioning data for that.

 

[rmHawk765]

There's actually a search function on the home page you can get there by just stationview.app (I need to add some backlinks perhaps to make that clearer or perhaps the ability to search from anywhere)

Ah alright - thanks for the info!

 

[Furrball]

For the times I would be tempted to have it all on the left hand side

So it would be something like

22:00 _______ ________Platform 1
On time

22:15 _______ ________Platform 2
Expected 22:18

 

[cosans]

A cool design for sure, but do keep in mind that Earl's Court is a LU station and there isn't really a public way to get timetable and positioning data for that.

It's definitely a tricky one to get right and yeah you're absolutely right it is an London Underground station, and I have actually added the entire London Underground as well. You can find it here https://stationview.app/london-underground/ searchable the exact same way the nation rail trains are

 

[cosans]

For the times I would be tempted to have it all on the left hand side

So it would be something like

22:00 _______ ________Platform 1
On time

22:15 _______ ________Platform 2
Expected 22:18

I think I understand what you mean, I had an idea to have a few potential views so people can choose the one they find most useful, whatcha think?

 

[Vexed]

It doesn't seem to work with cancelled stops, for example this service is diverting between Littlehampton and Three Bridges due to a points faliure near Brighton.

It does show cancelled at the intermediate stops but it doesn't show which stops have been taken out.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

A cool design for sure, but do keep in mind that Earl's Court is a LU station and there isn't really a public way to get timetable and positioning data for that.

Intertube does it.
Has the destination and platform which should be all you need for that display.

 

[rmHawk765]

Intertube does it.
Has the destination and platform which should be all you need for that display.

Ah alright, wasn't aware of this!

 

[cosans]

It doesn't seem to work with cancelled stops, for example this service is diverting between Littlehampton and Three Bridges due to a points faliure near Brighton.

It does show cancelled at the intermediate stops but it doesn't show which stops have been taken out.

ah yeah you're right I will have to sort that, at the moment its assuming best case and relying on information provided from that platform which in this case doesn't appear to have the right info. I will look at getting that fixed up because that's no good. Thanks for the feedback

 

[cosans]

Intertube does it.
Has the destination and platform which should be all you need for that display.

oooh that's a good looking app right there, another one of my personal favourites for the look mainly and the cool map is https://www.londonunderground.live/ my next major feature is to be able to track trains on national rail with a similar map to this perhaps a little more basic to due to the size of it.

 

[cosans]

It doesn't seem to work with cancelled stops, for example this service is diverting between Littlehampton and Three Bridges due to a points faliure near Brighton.

It does show cancelled at the intermediate stops but it doesn't show which stops have been taken out.

OK I've just deployed a potential fix, please let me know if it occurs again, now it should show "cancelled" next to the stop if it's being diverted or it's an altered service

 

[cosans]

Hey y'all, I spent some time at the weekend to add a feature that will allow the tracking of a train. One of the features I wanted when I made the board was not only the ability to look what will be departing soon from my station but also the ability to check where the train I'm waiting for is.

Well now I can and so can you. If you check out Kings Cross for example https://stationview.app/kgx you can track trains and see roughly where they are and if they've been delayed for any reason.

I don't want to accidentally overreach here by announcing updates in this thread (just thought you guys might appreciate this as much as me) but I do have an x / twitter account if you want to follow there for updates.

Hope you all had a good weekend.

 

[SwindonManor]

I love the effort! The font isn't an exact copy but it doesn't need to be. Perfectly good site for me however if I was to point anything out I would say add the availability to put the board into "concourse/platform style" where the boards are all next to each other or a board for just 1 platform is shown (I appreciate that for the London mega stations this will be hard). But other than that, well done

 

[cosans]

I love the effort! The font isn't an exact copy but it doesn't need to be. Perfectly good site for me however if I was to point anything out I would say add the availability to put the board into "concourse/platform style" where the boards are all next to each other or a board for just 1 platform is shown (I appreciate that for the London mega stations this will be hard). But other than that, well done

Cheers for the feedback, I'm currently looking in to a way of getting alternate views supported (initially what I was calling heritage views) for those really specific stations with cool departure boards. But I can certainly look in to this after. I think that could be really cool.