Transit - Mobile App
Transit is a mobile app that delivers real-time schedules and alerts for various public transportation modes like bus and rail, enabling users to conveniently plan and initiate their trips.
My Role
UX Designer (4 weeks)
Collaborators
2 Classmates
My contribution
-
Plan usability testing and user interview.
-
Redesign the feature "Start a trp" incorporating the feedback.
Problem
Based on a qualitative study conducted its been identified that new users found the application's features confusing, and existing users struggled with functionality, leading to user drop-offs.
Approach
Usability testing was carried out for two major revenue generating features of the app. This method was chosen to identify what "confusing" and "struggling" meant for the users.
Solution
Enhancing user onboarding through improved clarity and goal-driven interfaces, is expected to solve the problem of "confusion" thereby increasing user adoption.
Feature I was responsible
Start a trip
This feature displays a user's trip plan and assists them in navigating throughout their journey to successfully reach their destination.
Final Outcome
Projected Impact
1
Increase user adoption and engagement.
2
Improved discoveribility of features hence boosting business.
3
Improved task efficiency leading to higher satisfaction rates.
Research
User Profiling
We started the project with visiting product reviews on google play store and Apple store to understand the user base for better context and also identify pain points.
Painpoints overview
Based on the above studies, below represents the pain points for two major groups.
Leads high drop-off's and missed market opportunities
losing loyal users
Local users (USA)
" I struggle to understand the app and it takes lot of time to understand my trip details."
New International students
"The app has very poor way of showing the information to me.
But I still use it as I believe it gives me better trip plans than google"
Design Strategy
Every 6 months, a significant number of international students arrive in the US for education and predominantly depend on public transportation. This presents a substantial opportunity for our product to attract a large user base. Our approach to redesign is as follows:
Step 1
Design an experience to reduce new user drop-off's
Step 2
Extend the same solutions to local existing users while improving the interface's intuitiveness.
Redesign - 1
Desiging a goal focused homepage.
2
1
1
Solution
New design of the homepage enables users to schedule a trip or initiate destination search, which aligns with the mental modal of the users.
Additionally, we also show the most vistied locations.
Pain point
The homepage, increase the cognitive load by displaying all the buses available and with random names delaying the decision making for the user.
New International students
Pain point
Users new to the area cannot relate to the names of the bus stops.
The homepage doesn't show the distance to the bus stop hence delaying the decision process of the users.
New International students
2
New Design
Old Design
Solution
The new goal oriented approach showcases the users nearest stops instead of buses and a new feature is added.
Redesign -2
Faster decision making for selecting a trip.
2
1
1
Solution
- Added the "Now" at the home page.
- Qucik actions such as "+15sec"
Pain point
"Leave now" a very useful feature was
not discoverable to the user.
New International students
Local users (USA)
Pain point
User misinterprets as reaching the stop in 20 mins
New International students
Local users (USA)
2
New Design
Old Design
3
Pain point
More opportunity to present information that helps the user.
New International students
Local users (USA)
Solution
Improved Visualisation and keeping it consistent with google maps.
(Recognition vs recall).
3
Solution
New layout offers content thats aids in quick decision making.
Redesign -3
Better readable format for trip details.
2
1
1
Solution
Visual cue as time updates to reduce anxiety.
Pain point
No indication of the current statu which makes it difficult for the user to relate while travelling.
New International students
Local users (USA)
Pain point
Users often get confused with two times.
Although I see the importance of two times, it has been shown differently in new design.
New International students
Local users (USA)
2
New Design
Old Design
Solution
Improved visual hierarchy of the page to support faster reading.
3
Solution
Improved signficance by adding animation and button placement near the thumb.
Using the final design prototype, we measured its performance by conducting a usability testing with a user group similar to the criteria we set for the first evaluation.
Less than 5 number of errors
Satisfaction level rate 9/10
Average time taken to complete the tasks is less than 10 secs.
8 out of 9 participants completed the tasks as expected.
Learnings
1.
Having a diverse group of participants with different level of app experience revealed distinct app interactions at each level.
2.
Conducting user interviews was a valuable excercise in both question framing and gaining important perspectives.
3.
This project highlighted my biases that affected user research. Learnt how to be conciously aware them and reiterated the studies to gather relevant insights.