Key Lime Interactive (KLI) is a user experience (UX) and customer experience service design company that aids clients across multiple industries. KLI aims to expand its industry knowledge into the transportation and public services sector by evaluating the experience of on and off-campus Purdue students using the CityBus service.
To answer these questions, we began with primary research in the form of observations, which allowed us to identify common user touch points/channels of the CityBus experience. It also influenced our further research including user interviews and contextual inquiry. I rode the campus loop, photographing and noting down potential pain points and steps users might encounter.
We created an outline for a journey map to visualize our findings, displaying the six steps we identified as part of the experience and the touchpoints, pain points, and highlights that went with each step.
To discover the opinions and pain points students currently held about the CityBus service, we conducted secondary research on various platforms. I looked into user reviews platforms such as Reddit, NextDoor, Facebook, Google Play, and the Apple App Store. With this research, we discovered mixed reviews of both the app and the service itself, with some noting the usefulness of its app and others highlighting its inaccuracies, leading to its less than two-star rating on the Apple App Store.
With the steps we identified and research we collected in mind, we conducted usability testing with both experienced and new riders of the CityBus service to determine how current users navigate and use the MyCityBus app. We also noted any pain points participants encountered that would be addressed later in the design process.
Through this testing, we were able to uncover three major pain points that users experienced while completing our use-cases, which would then become opportunities for sketches and design. These issues are...
Through this milestone, we gathered enough data and information to form foundational knowledge about how the CityBus system work, as well as how users currently feel and operate it. We developed our outlined journey map and preliminary sketches to further inform our later work..
With this information, we had enough knowledge to write and conduct contextual inquiries in our second milestone and continue developing our different users segments, touchpoints, and channels through other activities.
To better understand a rider's experience using CityBus and to identify which parts of the experience create problems for users, we conducted contextual inquiry with Purdue students riding the bus.
Since there are many user segments that use the bus service, we conducted these inquiries with participants with varying levels of experience using CityBus. I accompanied a student that lived on campus but was unfamiliar with the bus, observing her actions and asking clarifying questions as we rode.
By synthesizing these insights, I was able to uncover these pain points:
Most bus stop signs only list the bus routes and the bus numbers. Some stops didn’t even have a sign, confusing newer riders. There was also no advertising or promotion for the CityBus app, leaving unfamiliar users lost as they were unaware of when the bus would be coming.
This prompted us to look into other similar campus bus systems and design for better communication of the routes and bus times.
While students appreciate the live tracking features on the app, we noticed that many aspects create an over-reliance on the app without any physical indicators of when buses will be arriving at a stop.
This opportunity is two-fold since there are many opportunities to either
a.) improve the app experience or
b.) reduce reliance on the app.
Most bus stop signs only list the bus routes and the bus numbers. Some stops didn’t even have a sign, confusing newer riders. There was also no advertising or promotion for the CityBus app, leaving unfamiliar users lost as they were unaware of when the bus would be coming.
This prompted us to look into other similar campus bus systems and design for better communication of the routes and bus times.
While students appreciate the live tracking features on the app, we noticed that many aspects create an over-reliance on the app without any physical indicators of when buses will be arriving at a stop.
This opportunity is two-fold since there are many opportunities to either
a.) improve the app experience or
b.) reduce reliance on the app.
Users appreciated the addition of an LCD display showing the stop requests and upcoming bus stops. However, many riders also simultaneously had issues seeing the display from the back of the bus as well as noting that they only display the next stop once.
This provided an opportunity to design new communication methods using haptic, visual, and auditory cues for riders, making comprehension of stops and bus times clear.
Using all the insights we have gathered, we organized all the steps and processes we were collecting into an iterated experience map with a service called JourneyTrack. This allowed us to find which pain points we found to be most common and the channels they belonged to, which we then used to inform our prioritization testing.
With an overwhelming amount of potential design spaces after our contextual inquiry, we decided that we needed to prioritize the pain points we found. We decided to do this by conducting guerrilla testing and a user survey, which would help us attain a large sample of student data, and an interview with the CityBus CEO to learn what design spaces would be more feasible.
We identified steps and pain points from previous activities, we conducted guerilla testing by setting up a board outside a high-traffic area on campus, encouraging people to tick tally marks under the three issues that were the most pressing to them.
Then, if that participant wanted, they could also give a verbal interview of their experiences and any other pain points that weren't on the board. I was one of the team members guiding users to the board and taking interviews.
These results, along with the answers we received from the survey and CEO interview, helped to inform our choice to focus on the app as the design focus, with suggestions for the physical experience of riding CityBus.
Our user survey also helped us identify the frequency of different pain points within the CityBus experience. We received over 100 results on our survey, and parsing through that information was invaluable to narrowing our design focus.
Altogether, the issues users found to be most severe and frequent are as follows.
While our guerilla testing and survey results leaned towards committing our efforts to redesigning the app, we wanted to get the thoughts of one last stakeholder before moving on. Since we wanted to know what was more feasible to possibly implement, we contacted the CEO of CityBus for an interview to discuss what the company is currently working on and what he may be interested to see.
Some notable insights from this meeting are that it is Tripspark, an external company, that designs CityBus' app; CityBus executives are currently working on solutions for the physical spaces; physical changes would require much more planning and costs; and that, out of all the changes we could suggest, changes to the app would be the easiest for CityBus to take action on.
With our design focused now solidified, we began sketching to recreate the user flow for a complete redesign of the app. Our goals for this redesign were to change the central UI feature to be the map, include notification widgets, and restructure the information flow. Below is the flow of our original sketches.
This design takes inspiration from navigation apps like Google and Apple maps to visualize the routing. Wireframing was done collaboratively with the team, and I provided suggestions and insights that influenced them. In this flow, users navigate from:
Map home screen → search for destination → select result → view details → go → walk to stop → arrive at stop → receive notification of bus arrival → board bus.
With this sketching done, we solidified how we wanted the users to interact with the system.
To visualize how we might create a design that satisfies CityBus users, we prototyped a high-fidelity mockup on Figma. Below is a walkthrough of the screens, though the Figma file can be found at the top of this page.
Because of the time and resource constraints, our team was only able to conduct in-lab usability and concept testing. While this provided us with an abundance of useful feedback to improve on in our final solution, we did not manage to complete fleshed-out testing that incorporates real-life context. The testing we did complete mainly served to determine whether our users see our designs as more helpful than the current solution.
Since we conducted our executive interview and examined similar apps made by TripSpark, we were aware that some technical constraints may make our solution difficult to implement. With the size of our group, one half also created a final solution that included a more realistic revision for the app, though I worked on the full overhaul. However, neither of these designs have fully gone through any technical consultancy to ensure it is feasible within the current systems.
I am incredibly proud and impressed with the work my team was able to accomplish this semester—however there are a few steps we were not able to get to in time. We wanted to conduct further research among Purdue students and continue evaluating the solutions we designed.
While we are confident that our research findings are true to the group we were able to research, we are aware they made not be accurate to all riders of CityBus, since that includes more than just Purdue students. Therefore, in the future we would broaden our scope to look at more than just Purdue students.
As this was my first ever UX industry project, the experience I gained was invaluable to utilize in my future projects. My team was always supportive and willing to answer any questions I had, leading me to an understanding of the content that I couldn't find anywhere else. This project was so interesting as it opened my eyes to the physical side of user experience design and all the opportunities and spaces designers can work with.
Throughout this project, I discovered a plethora of research methods, wrote and conducted user testing, and learned how to prototype in Figma. All of this was so intriguing that it solidified my choice of being in this field. I am grateful both to my team and our wonderful sponsors for this opportunity to learn and grow, and can't wait to continue my education and experience.
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