Editor’s note: The following story was contributed by Snoqualmie Valley Transportation.
Getting around Snoqualmie Valley without a car is easy with Snoqualmie Valley Transportation, a project by the Mount Si Senior Center, – just give them a call at 425-888-7001 and they’ll help you figure out which routes and services you need.
Or you can find all the information you need on the organization’s updated website, www.svtbus.org.
A new and improved website has been a long-awaited milestone for SVT’s David Beegle, who worked with SVT Director Amy Biggs to plan the update and choose a designer. They examined other small bus companies’ websites and reviewed user complaints to determine what they needed.
The existing site, Beegle said, was “outdated and hard to navigate, and not very appealing to the eye.” It was also a little confusing to users, because of the number and variety of services provided by SVT.
“There’s a lot of people who hear about SVT, and they actually go to the website… before they ever call us and try to find out information,” Beegle said. After reviewing the list of loop routes, fixed-route and variable-route shuttles, and appointment-based door-to-door service, “they’re still not clear on what the services are.
”
The new site provides all the same information, but with more details, and broken down by how riders would use each type of service, he said.
It’s also, says website designer Lisa Tuininga of The Medium in North Bend, “much more user friendly…Previously, much of the content required opening PDF’s in your browser. Now the site is better organized with more information directly integrated, as well as some visual hierarchy to guide the user to important elements.”
Beegle says the visual hierarchy will be helpful for visitors, because “I know people are going to be looking at it on their phones.”
The new site will also be translatable into many different languages.
Rider alerts may be the most useful addition to the website. Riders will be able to sign up for email alerts about changes to the service, such as the during flooding. The alerts will also save on staff time, said Director Biggs, since they will be able to send one message to all affected users and post the information to the website at the same time.
Another long-awaited feature, a trip planner, has been postponed but should be implemented later in the year. The feature will be based on GIS mapping data for all SVT routes, and will allow users to get a full route calculated from origin to destination, all in one application.
“A trip planner, like the one for King County Metro services, was really at the top of the list for the new website,” Biggs said. While she’s excited about the future trip planner and how easy it will make riding the bus in the Valley, her favorite new element is the restructured content.
“It’s going to have a much more robust jobs page,” she said. “All the job descriptions will be there, and the pay scales for drivers, call-takers and dispatchers, too.”
Currently, SVT is sorely under-staffed, with openings for five drivers, a call-taker and a dispatcher.
“This is such a great place to work so we need to make it easier for people to understand what the jobs are and where advancement opportunities can lead our folks” Biggs stated. Applications and job information can all be found at svtbus.org/jobs.
Site maintenance can easily be done by SVT or The Medium, said Tuininga, since the site is built in WordPress. Generally, she said, she recommends quarterly updates to the software, “but a nicely designed, functional website can last for years.”
People will find the new site at the URL they’ve always used, www.svtbus.org. And while it will help people to find the information without calling SVT, the site will not take the place of the call-takers helping riders to plan their trips.
Biggs said, “Despite having a great new site, a lot of people just would prefer to talk to someone and have some things explained to them. And that’s great too!”
