User research, Information architecture, Interaction design, visual design & usability testing
Nowadays, a city transit system serves thousands of commuters. Due to expansion, numerous bus routes have been recently added. Many of those routes stop at the same bus stop. Genius Bus app is a mobile app providing when the next bus will arrive at each stop, how much time riders have to get to the bus stop, and the pay apple is added to ease the commutes.
Riders want to know when the next bus will arrive at the bus stop.
Riders want to know when the next bus will arrive at the bus stop.They want to know how much time they have to get to the bus stop.
- Visual Map:
- Setting up GPS:
- Live View Facility:
- Apple Pay:
The visual map identifies the current location of the user, and shows all bus stops surrounding the user.
The GPS is set up in the bus to identify what time it will arrive.
View assists riders to find the attended bus stop.
Connecting Apple pay option to Genius bus app to ease payment process.
I was roughly familiar with how public transportation worked. Hopefully, I gained some helpful experience understanding the users when I used public transportation one day. These experiences helped prepare the survey. Because of the Covid-19 restriction on public transportation, it was inappropriate to get on the bus and ask the riders to fill out the surveys. I decided to send it to my colleagues and friends who were bus friends. The results from the survey were great. It helped better understand how public transportation is used from their perspective. I was also able to understand better the users' wants and needs for their preferred local transit app. From the results, I found out that about 20% of participants used public transportation several times a week, and 62% of participants sometimes missed the bus.
In the survey, I asked about users' struggles with public transit apps. 75% of users said live tracking of bus movement via GPS, 50% said time remaining to get to the bus stop, 43% of users said finding the intended bus station, and 38% of users said using Apple pay is the most important.
The next step was to create user personas that would serve as the potential audience for Genius Bus.
Behaviors
• He collects old coins
• He loves 70’s 80’s movies
• It is hard to dominate on new tools
• Loves his family
Goals & Needs
• My daughter needs to know the accurate arrival time. She gets worried when I am late.
• I need to know the remaining time to get to the bus stop to prepare to get on.
• Not have to think about the complicated technology.
• Effortless set up so I can set it and forget it until it is needed.
Hesitations & Pain Points
• The current system is hard to understand.
• Too many details and options.
• Sometimes, I forget to charge the ORCA card.
• Do not understand where the best way options are for me. There are many options.
Behaviors
• Competitive athlete
• Care about justice and defense of black lives matter
• Establish a small charity community
• Saving money is important
.Giving accurate information about which bus is coming.
• Allowing me to manage my financial status.
• I travel to different stadiums and gyms for competition, so I need to have good
camera navigation to find a bus station nearby.
• I really like to have a free travel credit when the bus arrives late. It is a good opportunity to
save my money for charity.
Hesitations & Pain Points
• I cannot see the transportation fee for each option.
• Finding the intended bus station is horrible for me. when I look for that spot, I have missed
the bus several times.
• Guessing what bus is arriving is hard.
Behaviors
Following technology news
Trading stock
Sleeping is a favorite action in the leisure time
Discipline person
Goals & Needs
• I need to know where the bus is when I am heading home.
• Technology is developing fast. I wish to pay my carfare with apple pay.
• Time is valuable; if I miss the bus, it will ruin my whole day. I want to arrive at work on time.
• Before I head out, I need to know if the ride got canceled to have enough time to get Uber.
Hesitations & Pain Points
• I cannot know where the bus is exactly.
• I hate to carry coins in my pocket. •
I order my grocery online, but I have to charge my ORCA card at a grocery store. •
There is no cancelation information on the app.
• I do not like the part of my mental struggle with the issue of transportation, but it is.
After understanding my users and market space, I took my user stories and built them into a sitemap. The sitemap helped me prioritize the main features included in Genius Bus.
Genius Bus' name was inspired by a new way of looking at the world around us.
With the initial mockups of the logo design, I wanted to create a simple visual bus icon with the brand name. I designed two distinct logos. In the preference test, the participants chose a suitable logo.
The color palette of the Genius Bus app was highly influenced by where I live. Seattle is the headquarters of a lot of the tech industry. These colors demonstrate technology vision. Neon magenta illustrates a modern, youthful and luxurious look. Electric blue’s association with electricity communicates energy, action, and excitement. In color psychology, blue is linked with trustworthiness and reliability, making it a popular choice for business logos. The added spark of electric blue means you will often find it in the logos for innovative brands or applications.
The next step in the process was creating a prototype of what I had designed. The initial problems were to create a screen where users could find what and when a bus was going to arrive in Seattle.
I tried to add more facilities on the Genius Bus app to assist riders to achieve their destinations easier on the product, such as Live View, Apple Pay, and Free Travel Credit. After completing this project, I created a screen that prepared information regarding what bus would arrive and when it would arrive. With Live View, the user gets directions placed in the real world and on a mini-map at the bottom of their screen. Users can use Live View navigation during the walking portion of any trip. Implementing Apple Pay helps riders pay for carfare. Free Travel Credit was made based on a psychology theory called Punishment-Reward theory which claims that if the bus arrives late at the bus station, more than 5 minutes delay, the travel credit would be free for all riders.
