Sweep
How I crafted a public transportation app, using preliminary research, surveys, and common product methodologies.
Mid 2021 • Product design student • Mobile app design, preliminary research, wireframe to prototype.
Mid 2021 • Product design student • Mobile app design, preliminary research, wireframe to prototype.
As part of the UX architects course I took in 2021 (by Dr. Ofer Monar), I was asked to design a public transportation app. The app should have several public transportation options (bus, train, taxi, etc.), and orient the user during all stages of his route. Here are a few words about the process I had.
Project’s main goal was included in the brief, while I added secondary goals to narrow the focus and orient my solutions toward specific principles. Later I compared, validated and modified these goals according to my research insights.
First things first, I started by conducting a survey to find common usage patterns and identify opportunities for improvement. I ended up with interesting results.
By asking users to rate their feature-usage frequency, I distilled the top 3 features in use. By combining rating-scale questions, and asking people to rate their level of agreement with certain statements, I pull out some more important insights about usage patterns. I also asked people to sort & prioritize their personal preferences while riding in public transportation.
Other than the survey, I also did some benchmark research of popular public-transportation apps such as Moovit, Transit and Citymapper to review common patterns, and take inspiration for UI and features.
After the preliminary research I felt ready to assemble the pieces together. Starting by distilling a user persona:
In addition, I also sorted features by priority, analyzing the tasks our persona has to perform in order to take a successful ride, assembled an information architecture, and tied it all together in a user flows.
After my analysis I ended up with 3 main used cases in mind for my design, even though eventually I choose to focus on a single, primary used case for my design.
It a long and iterative process, but as usual - I’m starting from whiteboard sketches that evolve into wireframes, up to a fully function prototype
I ended up with something I was quite proud of. After all it was a school project I did very quickly, but I think I got the most out of it, especially the research process and survey building. Both the course and this project were great experiences that added to my confidence & skillset as a designer.
In retrospect, I probably should have explored more variations, and iterated more within the wireframe stage. I think I could have come up with more sophisticated, out-of-the-box solutions. But again, it was an educational project after all, so it fulfilled its purpose in that manner.