Transit - Get-On App
Public Bus Commute made easy
Context
After talking to my friends, colleagues, bus commuters, and having personal experience, I saw everyday bus commuters face an unaddressed problem. People spend a long time at their bus stops, waiting for their next bus with seats available or at least standing room to reach work or fulfill other commitments.
Role
My role as a designer is to be a User Researcher, UX designer, Wireframe Designer, and Visual Designer at different stages to make a useful and engaging mobile app.
Timeline: 3 months
Problem Statement
Sure, we have many apps to tell us the next bus arrival, but they never tell us buses will not stop, either because it’s full or no seats are available.
Solution
Create an app flow to improve the satisfaction of bus commuters around the city, focusing on a way to provide information about seats available / standing room. It allows to plan when to leave and save wait time.
Goal
Main goal is to focus on a particular feature and user flow which other apps are missing and reduce the friction for the users during bus commute. It is not to create a complete new app from the beginning.
Constraint
Keeping in mind the real life where we don’t have endless time to work. Main constraint was to keep a 3 month timeline and create an MVP (minimum viable product).
Process
Design Thinking - Non linear process
Research - Survey
I conducted survey with people who have experience commuting via bus and almost all had faced problems with real time accuracy, delays and buses not stopping because they are full.
Survey questions:
Key questions from my survey that gave me insight into their daily commute patterns were:
How often do you use public transport?
How much time do you spend in commute?
Would you prefer getting a seat or standing room?
How do you pass time in your bus commute?
What are your current problems with your commute apps?
I also interviewed 3 of them whose feedback is different from the rest and tried to understand their needs. I analyzed the data and came up with important data points that users are looking for.
User stories - Pain points from interviews
Competitive Research - SWOT
(Google maps, Waze, MTA transit etc.)
WEAKNESS
Doesn’t say if bus has any seats / standing room / full or empty
Sometimes, doesn’t show alternate routes and other buses
Doesn’t have a crowdsourcing provision
Battery and memory Overload - extremely slow
STRENGTHS
Easy navigation from point A to B
Clean interface and simple to use
Watch your transit vehicle approaching on a map in real-time
OPPORTUNITIES
Provide information about the next bus with seats available / standing room / full or empty
See real-time arrivals for nearby buses
setting your most used routes on top as favorites with notification
Plan when to leave with accuracy
Make it personal - show rain safe, snow safe
THREATS
Strong competition from other brands
If any established apps are planning to implement similar idea
User PERSONAS
User Journey
Use case & Hypothesis
affinity diagram
Ideation
Brainstorming was the most crucial part of the project. Here I had to come up with as many solutions as possible, along with ideas from different individuals who also helped share their perspective. Below were the three main ideas which then were filtered.
Book a Seat
This idea was to facilitate seat booking on local and express buses
Bus Camera
Through live bus camera feed to the app, seat availability or standing room is notified to users.
Crowdsourcing
Here, the idea was to build a community were people can share their information on the app to help other users.
Although seat booking is a more error-free approach, doing it in peak hours can be a hassle especially when buses can overtake each other in seconds. Elders and others who are not using apps but using paper tickets will be restricted.
Bus camera is another idea for live feedback from users as a solution. This would give more accurate results. The only concern was trespassing people’s privacy. Hence no pictures will be shared but only a matrix of their exact seating placements.
After several iterations I realized crowdsourcing is not the best for seat information but it is effective for knowing number of people at the bus stop.
USER FLOW
WireframeS
These wireframes slice shows the sign up, hot spots of where the buses near you are located in real time and search for destination
This slice shows the list of buses to your destination and seat view from bus camera and bus route
Here you can see the settings screen, report number of people waiting at bus stop to help others and push notification
Brand Guide
Colors
Typography
Buttons
Tab bar
Icons
High Fidelity - Wireframes
On boarding screens
Settings and favorite route screen
Information about near by buses from you and number of people waiting at bus stop
Seat information gathered from bus camera and a zoomed in view of your location
Your route navigation to destination and how through crowdsourcing you can report people waiting at bus stop
If user doesn’t prefer manual input like crowdsourcing in the earlier screens, then an alternative push notification that just lets users thumbs up / down or an easier entry with least effort.
INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
Take Aways
This was a huge learning experience which helped me improve my decision making abilities at crucial moments and go with best solutions. After the project, I think the most useful was to practice the UX methods. These methods like user flow, information architecture, personas, scenarios, has helped me analyze requirements, understand what users really want. It also let me focus on solving real world problems in an agile fashion.
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