Lymington - Fees - iPad

[fireball]

Next weekend Lymington Harbour will be introducing their new payment processes.
Currently, if you tie up on Town Quay or any of the river berths/moorings they will come along side, capture your info, tell you how much and then issue a receipt for fees paid.
From next weekend they will use an iPad.

So how is this going to work and has any usability testing been done?

So does an iPad float? (no)
Can an iPad be read in Sunlight? (no)
Can an iPad issue receipts? (no)
Can an iPad issue a piece of paper with the shower code? (no)
Is an iPad waterproof? (no)
Will the battery last long enough? (hmmm...)

Who really came up with this barmy idea?

Would you be moaning if they'd done this with an Android Tablet instead?

One of the nice things about going into marina offices is being able to give them the name of the boat and our name - they then have all the details on screen and we don't have to give them any more info.
From the operators point of view it also starts to build a picture of usage with minimal additional input - and hopefully no duplication.

Have you looked at how much an iPad costs in relation to other costs such as a pontoon or work boat ... it's peanuts ... anyway it gives the monkeys* something to play with

* no insult intended to the HM staff - peanuts & monkeys seem to go together

[VicMallows]

I love the ancient bus ticket machine that NT still use at Newtown Creek. Real engineering. They must even still have a source for the buff-yellow ticket rolls.

[l'escargot]

I love the ancient bus ticket machine that NT still use at Newtown Creek. Real engineering. They must even still have a source for the buff-yellow ticket rolls.

They still used those in Lymington up to the season before last.

[xcw]

I was talking to the berthing master about this when I visited this weekend. Not sure he was too impressed by the idea; he said it would take a lot longer to "process" each visitor because of the information he will be required to collect and he also mentioned the problem of viewing the screen in sunlight (apparently this was a problem during the trial) and of keeping the thing dry. Apparently they are going to use the information collected for marketing purposes and analysis. No doubt the local authority will be able to spend many happy hours discussing the data collected I just hope they don't use it as an excuse for hiking their overnight visitor prices. Nothing wrong with the old style bus ticket machines they used until a couple of years ago!

[mikemanor]

Is the shower code not still posted in a postion where boaters will see it It was last season.