 |
A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
| About Mark Hurst | Mark's Gel Conference | New York Times Story on This Is Broken | Newsletter: Subscribe | RSS Feed |
Search this site:
Categories:
- Advertising
- Current Affairs
- Customer Service
- Fixed
- Food and Drink
- Just for Fun
- Misc
- Not broken
- Place
- Product Design
- Signs
- Travel
- Web/Tech
Previous: Smores maker | Main | Next: Capital One state map
April 27, 2004 12:01 AM
Broken: Petco Park seating
Ward Andrews writes:
My father and I visited San Diego's new Petco Park this weekend. We were looking for our seats, in section 111, and were surprised to find they were no where near the sign pictured (pointing to sections 110 and 112). It turns out that the odd numbered sections were on the other side of the park, so we had to walk from the first base side to the third base side. Why not number the sections in order?
This is extremely standard procedure in any venue (concert halls, sports stadiums, etc) with a large number of seats. It's not broken at all - there's a very good reason for it - it allows odd/even to encode left-side/right-side, regardless of the number of seats.
Thus, at ANY large venue using this system (and the vast majority do!), you can head in the correct general direction without knowing anything about the range of seats at that venue.
This is not broken. This is quite intelligent.
http://www.seatdata.com/html/mlb_diamondbacks/pick_section_mlb_diamondbacks.htm
coming from a sequential seating home park, it was quite a suprise. maybe bankone ballpark is non-standard? i know i always benefit from even and odd numbered addresses on streets when looking for a specific address physical location.
I agree with both sides of the story here! As Daniel Drucker pointed out, this is an intelligent system - but only if you know how to use it!
Why not provide signs or information on the tickets which explains simply that odd numbers are on one side and even numbers on another?
It's like driving a car - everyone who's ever driven one knows which pedal is which, but someone who's never driven needs to be told before they can learn.
Anything that makes someone have to walk all the way around a ballpark for no good reason is broken. Having odd and even houses on different sides of the street is completely different, this is more like having all odd and even numbered houses at different ENDS of the street.
You don't have to walk around the park because of the numbering.
Let's assume you enter the park on the correct side (and since you typically have a gate number on your ticket, then you will). You'd see a sign that said
- 101 103 -
and you'd start walking in the 103 direction, passing "105 107" and reaching "109 111" and your seat. If you kept going to "113 115" you've gone too far already, and you know to turn back before you hit the evens.
If you entered the park on the wrong side (because of a gate number screwup, or a park that doesn't use gate numbers) then you'd have to walk around the park no matter what numbering system they used.
In neither case do the numbers put you in the wrong place.
> it allows odd/even to encode left-side/right-side,
> regardless of the number of seats.
> ...
> This is not broken. This is quite intelligent.
I disagree. Encoding spatial information into a number is not obvious.
Why not:
A100, B100. Then people can get their bearings by looking for the "A" section or the "B" section first and then finding the seat number.
or:
Red 100, Blue 100. Then they're color-coded.
or:
L100, R100 for left/right.
or:
North 100, South 100. Since left/right depend on everyone having the same initial orientation, maybe absolute positions would better.
I don't consider the even/odd system to be "quite intelligent." There's certainly a lot of headroom for improvement.
Mendel has it nailed. The OP didn't have to walk any farther as a result of the system. He was a puzzled for a sec, and now for the rest of his life he'll know the scoop.
The odd-even numbering system lets you know which entrance you should enter (or park near) to minimize walking around inside the park.
As for James' ideas:
> A100, B100.
No. Then you have two sections with the same number. If I got a tickets that said A100, I would think, "Awesome, front row in section 100!" There's a huge precedent here with how letters and numbers are used.
> Red 100, Blue 100. Then they're color-coded.
That would be disastrous.
> North 100, South 100.
The general public doesn't know their cardinal directions well enough for this to work. And again, you have repeated section numbers.
Also, the odd-even system ensures that the higher the number, the further away the section from home plate. Then you don't have a situation where section 149 is right next to section 101, and you can tell how good your seats are immediately.
This is definitely not broken. Initial confusion on first use, lifetime of advantages.
I'm unconvinced.
> The odd-even numbering system lets you know
> which entrance you should enter (or park near)
> to minimize walking around inside the park.
So would other systems.
> There's a huge precedent here with how
> letters and numbers are used.
There's a huge precedent for consecutive numbers occuring together too.
>> Then they're color-coded.
> That would be disastrous.
... because...?
> Also, the odd-even system ensures that the
> higher the number, the further away the
> section from home plate.
So would other systems that use numbers in conjunction with more descriptive labels.
> Initial confusion on first use, lifetime of
> advantages.
So are you saying that you wouldn't be able to learn any of my proposed alternatives after the first time? If not, then those alternatives certainly are no worse, and I think that they're less likely to confuse first-timers.
The odd/even system may not be broken, but it could be (and should be) better. (Usability is not merely about ensuring that people are capable of performing some task; it's about ensuring that they can do it quickly and easily.) Encoding such information in the /least significant digit/ provides no cues.
If you think that the odd/even system is as good as it gets and if your main complaint is that there shouldn't be sections with the same numbers, I suppose you could do both: North 100, South 101, etc.
> Mendel has it nailed. The OP didn't have to
> walk any farther as a result of the system.
Sure he did. If the system made it obvious which sections were where (e.g. "North 100"), then he'd know to park on the north side (this could be further improved with signs in the parking lot).
At the very least, even if a person has no sense of direction, if he walks in and see signs for "South ###" seats, if his ticket says "North" on it, it's obvious he's on the wrong side. No time wasted in puzzlement.
You're still ignoring the issue of your systems requiring two sections to have the same number. Your most significant "bit" will inevitably be ignored by many (especially if it were a color; thus, disastrous). Nothing will infuratiate a patron more than being settled in a seat, then asked to move to the other side of the park.
Also, ticket systems currently don't have enough room to print North or South or Red or Blue in front of the section number.
Don't reuse numbers. Sequential numbering, front rows to back, with a L/R, N/S, or E/W prefix (in some parks compass directions may be better) depending on which side of the park a particular seat is. One extra character shouldn't be a problem for most parks, especially if a venue was designed to use this system when built.
Even with a flat numbering system, color coding would be bad because (1) color-blind users and (2) the costs of color printing over the long term for tickets, signs, and other printed materials.
> You're still ignoring the issue of your systems
> requiring two sections to have the same number.
Did I not say:
> If you think that the odd/even system is as good
> as it gets and if your main complaint is that
> there shouldn't be sections with the same numbers,
> I suppose you could do both: North 100, South
> 101, etc.
?
Look, if reusing numbers is a problem, fine. None of the alternatives I mentioned *require* reusing numbers.
I go to a ballpark about once in a Dodger-blue moon, so I sometimes forget about this odd-even convention. I end up walking much farther than necessary and I'm usually not very happy about it, especially when I have little kids with me and _they_ aren't happy about it.
It amazes me that they don't just put a little blurb on the ticket, such as "Odd numbered rows are on the 3rd base side of the ballpark." If you flip the ticket over, they have far more than that written on the back. Of course, they don't care if you are greately inconvenienced, but they _do_ care that there should be any perception that they have any legal liability whatsoever.
when i go to the Movies and they take my ticket they point me in the right direction. "Down your left, #11 on the right side." They should have people who work at any large place tell you where to go. Like when they take your ticket or when you park. "You're seats are on the far left. Take the stair to the top."
You know what would be a whole hell of a lot easier? Stick with sequential seating and say to hell with it when talking about odd/even numbers! What's wrong with the Bank One Ballpark example? Makes perfect sense to me
Good information design does not require you to learn a new system.
Good information design uses language and icons readily understood by the target audience (in this case, everyone from children to the elderly, sports novices to experts) to facilitate a positive user experience.
Bad information design often justifies itself by saying, "once you learn the system, you're better off." This is the ends justifies the means argument.
Good information design, on the other hand, would say, "let's take the goal of getting people to their seats and figure out a universally understood solution that doesn't require that people ignore something as fundamental as a sequential numeric system."
It's like people justifying bad road signage by saying, "once you've driven there, you'll never get lost again." Shouldn't the goal have been not to allow drivers to get lost in the first place?
Broken.
Michael McWatters defined good experience admirably.
I've seen this system, but I'm still not certain what the purported advantage to having the odd numbers in a different area than even is.
Because there seems to be confusion about the downside: A visitor who doesn't realize that 111 isn't between 110 and 112, and so goes to 110/112, then mills around until figures out the issue... then has to walk back to the other side of the stadium.
If there's an advantage to keeping the even and odd sections segregated, why not have a sign under the odd numbers (on the wall) saying "Even numbers on north wall" or similar? (The opposite on the even side, natch)
Using the labels of "Red" and "Blue" doesn't affect the colorblind, unless you use the colors *only*, not color in addition to the words. We're colorblind, not illiterate.
The "North" and "South" (or East, West, whatever) seems even better though. Even for those who don't know what direction north is can recognize the need to stop and check sooner.
I don't pay enough attention to the tickets to remember if there's a lack of room there, so I'll happily stipulate that this could be an issue. But again, having better signs on the wall in the stadium would help, if even/odd separatism is necessary.
Or, is there a reason why the sections can't be marked A, B, C, (again sequentially)?
i didn't read anyone else's post, so maybe i'm being redundant, but a lot of stadiums have seperate odd and even sections.
Hang on - aren't the numbers 110 and 112 both even numbers?? where are the odd numbers?? where is seat 111???
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Smores maker | Main | Next: Capital One state map
Okay, I showed this to my wife (she passes for uh, bedroom testing when I'm not in the office for hallway usability test). She says most parks are like this.
I still agree it's broken. Maybe us geeks just aren't used sports stuff?
Posted by: Bradley Dean at April 27, 2004 02:37 AM