Interactive Route Map on Bus
—— A step to better public transportation experience
Defining the Problem
UC Berkeley students use public transportation (e.g. buses, the BART) to save time and get around the neighborhood. However, public transportation experience is far from perfect. Buses are always late. People concern about safety and cleanliness of buses and the BART. Navigations around and on public transportation are not intuitive and can be misleading. So how might we improve the public transportation experience? In this project, I hope to solve the problem of tracking stops on buses, so as to help people keep track of where they are.
User Research
The goal of the preliminary user research is to find out how UCB students get around campus/Bay Areas, and to understand students' reviews and evaluation of of public transportation experience. Some key questions addressed in the user interviews are:
- What are the common pain points of public transportation?
- What is the experience like waiting for public transportation?
- How do people navigate the bus/BART system?
- What is the experience like on public transportation?
Key Takeaways
- Most users use apps(Google Maps; NextBus) to navigate instead of the schedules posted online & at bus/BART stations, because real-time tracking is very important. Navigation of public transportation is not intuitive for most people.
- Arrival of the bus is usually later than expected, which makes users feel irritated and anxious.
- Some users described concerns about safety and cleanliness on bus/BART.
- It was difficult for users to keep track of bus stops once they got on the bus.
- Not finding seats and overcrowding of the bus during busier hours made users feel frustrated.
Ideation
Divergent Thinking
Brainstorming
How might we improve public transportation experience?
- A digital display in the front of the bus showing the approaching stop.
- A real-time tracking route map on bus/BART
- A safety alert button on bus/BART
- A notification function of designated stop in apps.
- Online charging option for clipper card to avoid waiting in line
- A electronic display at bus stops showing real-time bus schedule
- More buses and decreased gap time between buses during rush hours.
- Mark BART trains with corresponding colors on Google Maps
Convergent Thinking
Public transportation experience is a broad topic. Of all the findings obtained from the user interview, I decided to solve the problem of tracking stops on buses. Stops are not always announced on buses, and can be interrupted by the announcement of someone pressing "STOP" button. Some interviewees mentioned that they had to stare at the phone all the time so that they won't miss their stops. I aimed to find an efficient and intuitive way to keep track on buses.
Prototypes
Low-fidelity prototyping
I decided to design a interactive route map on buses. It is expected to be installed overhead on the bus's wall near the ceiling, so that people can see it simply by looking up. All stops are listed on the map. It uses small colored light bulbs to indicate the location and status of the bus.
Mid-Fidelity prototyping
I used Figma to create a finer interface of the map.
Insights from Usability Testing
Feedback: It's weird to show future stops as red and the current stop as green.
Improvement: Switch the color combination. Use red for future stops and green for the current stop, which matches people's feeling of associating "inhibited" with red, "pass" with green (e.g. as in traffic lights).
Feedback: Use fewer colors to avoid confusion.
Improvement: When a stop is requested, the light will turn green instead of yellow (as in low-fi). Therefore, only green and red is applied in the map.
Final product prototype
The digital high-fi prototype was created in Figma, with imaginary buttons and side notes to simulate behaviors of the bus and allow interactive user testing.
Notes: the orange circle below indicate this light is blinking in red.
User Flow
Reflection
I learned a lot about design process through this project. It forced me to free my imagination and think creatively. User testing pushed me out of my comfort zone and communicate with others. Sometimes other people can provide unique perspectives that will never occur to myself. It also pushed me to actively observe in daily life. One big challenge in this project is to narrow down a relatively broad topic to a specific issue. One thing that I haven't solved in time is: some buses' routes are different in two directions. The prototype I designed can only be used on buses with exactly the same routes and stops in both directions. This perhaps can be improved in future iterations. This interactive route map could also be extended to BART in the future.
