Transit Tracker: Travel made simple…
A transportation app with the problem of unhappy and confused users leading to less engagement. They received complaints from riders about lack of accurate bus times leading to them missing their route, confusion on bus schedules, and struggling to figure out how much time they have before a bus arrives at their stop.
The Problem:
Role
All- Independent UX UI Designer
Target Audience
Users riding the metro consistently
Length
3 weeks
Discovery & Research
This project was crucial to the company because the pain points of users’ frustration and confusion due to constantly missing their route, missing an important event, and being late to their desired destination led to less user engagement overall losing revenue opportunities and growth for the company.
I set out to pursue my desired goal to deliver an organized interface that illustrates accurate timing to prevent missing bus routes, a UI with precise time tracking, and encourage returning of riders.
With the knowledge I had of what disconnected the riders from engaging with the app, I began to do my research on a competitor company. Determining the SWOT, helped me identify what opportunities it presented for the creation of Transit Tracker. I used the app’s negative and turning it into our positive:
Communicate with users to receive honest feedback
Create a UI for everyone, not just tech-savvy users
Change customers’ attitudes towards the company
A working student getting across the city to school, a salesman needing to open up a store, and a corporate employee rushing to make a meeting: Users who heavily relied on the app to get to their desired destination. These users were typically tech-savvy but reported that they wanted an app that is simple, informative, and straightforward. When faced with numerous options, the users felt it was challenging to make a decision- leading to procrastination. The less cognitive capacity it took to find their bus route, the more likely they would continue to engage with the app.
Information Architecture
Once I communicated and received feedback from the users through a survey I created with targeted questions and opening up the space for the users to express their personal frustrations, it helped me understand the lifestyle and demographic leading me to establish the user stories and mapping out my user flow.
When I first began sketching my wireframe, I provided multiple ways to interact on the screen, decision points, and screen content with a bias in my mind of thinking that tech-savvy users always prefer a plethora of options. Although once I began the wireframe, it started to feel cluttered, so I redid the user flow with an approach of “If I was running around the hustle and bustle of a city needing to catch a ride on the bus, I would want the information presented right away rather than digging for it”. My final user felt straightforward and didn’t take much brain capacity to where an individual would feel confused.
The Final Product: Transit Tracker
And finally, the outcome of the product, Transit Tracker. The option to share the users location or type in a destination already simplifies what the objective is on the screen. Buttons are easy to recognize, and the option to find your specific bus line touches on the pain point of confusion on which bus it is at a specific stop. Users are able to narrow their search, providing instructions on what the next interaction is to lead them to their desired goal. Giving the users the option to view delayed routes ensures worry-free travel and helping users manage their time. Transit Tracker is sure to ease and transform a user’s daily commute.
Usability Report
The key findings from the users’ results and feedback is. Transit Tracker’s impact was significant in that 7/10 users reported that the app helped them manage their time to and from the bus as well as no longer missing their route. 3/10 of the users who worked for corporate companies reported that they wished there were more options to engage with the app. Overall, the impact proved to be intuitive, accessible, and showed a decrease of missing routes and increase in returning riders.
My last words..
The creation of this project taught me the importance of the true value of thinking intentionally when designing the product. It brought upon a lifestyle that I wasn’t knowledgeable about in the sense of using a public transportation as a daily part of my routine. Reflecting on that made me realize that in order to deepen the empathy with users when designing, being a complete participant and immersing myself in the life (if time allows) is important. After all, empathy is what makes this field bring projects to life.
