Airport usability
Since my recent trip to Europe covered four countries, I had the opportunity to hit a few more airports and train stations than usual, and observe first-hand their usability and accessibility as a foreigner. Generally, I was impressed; I'm glad my wife studied a bit of French and I brushed up on my college German, but the major transportation hubs were very friendly to foreigners, and generally had a lot of signage that was either multilingual or used icons liberally (and, thankfully, icons that usually made sense).One unfortunate exception was Charles de Gaulle airport. This was not, despite the opinions of some of my fellow Americans, the fault of the Parisians. I generally found the Parisians to be helpful and friendly, at least as much so as people in any large city. Unfortunately, Charles de Gaulle had one fatal usability flaw. Nowhere in the entire airport was there a map or guide that told you which airlines were connected to which terminals. Coupled with the fact that the terminals themselves were fairly complex to navigate, we had to ask three employees and spent over an hour sorting out where American Airlines flew out of.
On top of that, the whole "freedom fries" thing must have really irritated French officials, as American Airlines customers seemed to be punished for our guilt by association. American was one of the only foreign carriers outside of the main terminal, and we were loaded on a bus that drove out to our plane, somewhere on the edge of the airport next to Kim Jong-il Airlines and other preferred carriers.
Peter
· Saturday, June 2French sign boards are notably worse than Dutch and German signs but I think the overall winner (or perhaps more appropriately: loser) in Western Europe has to be Belgium. Never before in the developed world have I seen such bad usability in public spaces. I suppose it has its charms though.
Dr. Pete
· Saturday, June 2Peter: Finding anything in Brussels was a nightmare, that's for sure, even with a decent map. We actually accidentally walked into the tourist office when we were lost and asked them where the tourist office was.
Mike Maddaloni
· Wednesday, May 30I feel your pain on CdG airport - once when I was there I was dropped off at the wrong terminal and signage was no help in determining this - it was after talking with employees that I knew I was in the wrong terminal.
mp/m