Ironhack UX/UI Prework Challenge 1
The following is a case study of a speculative exercise.
Citymapper is a public transport application and mapping service which displays transport options between any two locations in a supported city. It’s recognizable for its accuracy when it comes to live timing and suggestion of effective routes.
It integrates data for all urban modes of transport, including walking, cycling, and driving, in addition to public transport. On a basic level of functionalities, it is free of charge and supports both mobile and desktop.
Citymapper aggregates open data and input from transit authorities. Unlike transit or Moovit doesn’t crowdsource information.
The problem as specified in Ironhack Challange description:
Although the current product (…)solves some of the main problems of urban mobility, there is one pain point for many users: the different amount of public transport tickets the users have to purchase.
Public transport tickets come in paper or plastic cards. Very often buying different public transport tickets is necessary to go from point A to B. And the process of buying these tickets can be very annoying (queues, vending machines that don’t work, etc).
Finally, things like pricing or purchasing the correct ticket can become a real pain when you are abroad.
To sum it up:
The client suspects business value in providing a system of unified purchase of several tickets from different carriers covering the entire trip through their application.
The main competitors of Citymapper are Transit (app) and Moovit both offering similar features when it comes to planning, monitoring, and orienting oneself throughout the transit. In that, they all remain more sophisticated and reliable versions of GoogleMaps.
Another tier of competitors are applications of local transit authorities like BVG ticket app and BVG trip planner in Berlin or unified virtual wallets like skyCash in Poland. Those apps already offer unified ticket purchases usually for multiple modes of public transport.
At the same time, they all visualize the growing complexity of urban travel and modal transportation systems.
I found a few interesting insights in McKinsey&Co. report “Urban transportation systems of 25 global cities. Elements of success.”
McKinsey notices that users perceive the complexity and richness of offers as confusing and intimidating.
It concludes its findings about ticketing benchmarks:
The top three index values were registered in Beijing, Tokyo, and Shenzhen . In all those cities, it is possible to use travel cards to pay for nontransport services and to use mobile devices to pay fares. However, what truly makes the cities stand out is that they have implemented technologies enabling fare payments using biometric data. For example, a face-scan fare payment system has gone online in Shenzhen. Passengers can have their faces scanned while they are passing the turnstile, and later the fare is automatically debited from their personal accounts (…) Passengers report that it takes less time to enter the station using the new system than before, when they had to place a card or smartphone over the reader. p.79
Atop of that the main trend in designing public transportation is the unification of fares even if they cover more than one carrier. Monthly 9 euro ticket in Germany was a good example as it covered both city transport (subway, local trains, buses) but also regional trains. Asian cities are in the avant-guard of this trend but Europe is not far behind.
This brought me to a question — Who actually needs those multiple tickets bundles?
My hypothesis was we are talking about casual users of public transport — which means people that do not have long-term tickets or do not have them yet. Tourists and new arrivals who only learn the city and its little ways.
For the simple reason, most of the cities introduced a unified monthly or longer abonnements for public transport based on the zones system. You usually learn about them during first 2 months of living in a new city. Till you get a car or a bike.
As my first user group I interviewed persons who are in their 20s/30s, use their mobility often, had experience of at least 2 continents, and do not have a technical background. The last one was to avoid unnecessary fixation on technical aspects of the process but also avoid early adopters bias.
- Users, even those skeptic toward technology would prefer it to alternative solutions if it would offer them an effortless automatized solution to avoid the complexity of public transport. The used expressions vary from “contactless” and “invisible” to “natural”. One of the users challenged his own reluctance with the BVG ticket app and found it much easier than machines in the subway to his own surprise.
- Users as tourists will rather trust their luck than go through the indignity of figuring out how to buy a ticket in a foreign country.
- One of my subjects instructed me on how to forge a printed BVG ticket. Which is actually a serious criminal offense in Germany. By this point the question “is it a bug or is it a feature?” morphed into “One’s bug is someone else’s feature” but I will pursue this line of research on some other occasion. It illustrates how unwilling the users are to learn a new UI of public transport.
- The two main impediments to use public transport as opposed to car, bike or walking were high price of the tickets and the unnecessarily complicated system of purchase. Users stressed it was confusing and they never know if they bought the right ticket.
- Confusion in front of the overly complex and unknown system additionally heightens the anxiety felt in a new city. Users want to avoid feeling ignorant and getting in trouble with authorities.
Users need is an essentially care-less way of paying for the transport service. By care -less I understand a way of managing ticket purchases in a way that they don’t have to consciously think about it. Ideal public transport is one paid from taxes by the state hence paid but in an “invisible” way. Interviews showed means that users see convenience as more important than the price which resonates with the McKinsey report.
Contactless and automatized is a regulative ideal.
The problem that appeared in the interviews although not necessarily consciously to the participants is that there is a marked difference between forms of access to the transport systems.
The crucial types are open access and restricted access systems. In some cities, you can access the bus or tube without checking in your ticket. The action of buying and activating is not a prerequisite to entering the vehicle. The passengers are controlled infrequently if they possess the tickets. Berlin U-bahn and S-Bahn system is an example. In other cities like London, you have to activate the ticket to cross the entry gate. Some cities mix the two across different modes of transport like Warsaw (tube—restricted, buses, trams, and trains — open).
This difference affects which form of the ticket will be more important for the user. Ticket as entry pass or ticket as proof of purchase.
To summarise: I was looking for a solution which will allow the user to buy all the necessary tickets and provide her with access to different systems of transport with one click (maybe 2), let her enjoy the city she is just getting to know and will be scalable so she wont drop the app after buying a monthly ticket.
Based on those insights I came up with a few ideas:
- Mini — local solutions build around existing infrastructure in each city alternating between forms of the tickets but always taking the pricing feature of the app as a point of departure and generating virtual debit, virtual version of the timed ticket with QR etc.
- Midi — a little more universal solution
Purchase of a bundle based on a price estimation while planning the trip and activation of timed tickets based on GPS readings or in case of restricted access systems contactless activation via card reader.
3. Maxi — black mirror grade of convenience
A virtual card storing the above information and integrated with long-term abonnements (weekend tickets, tourist offers), proposing the purchase of extra tickets while planning the trip and notifying when we are out of “coverage”.
Integrated with biometric systems and charging for transport without any other user activity than getting her face scanned by the gates or based on GPS data of route and velocity compared to the individual bus or tramway route data from public authorities.
This last solution can be both scaled and adapted to different mixtures of ticket forms and functions.
I chose the virtual card solution as the most versatile when it comes to covering multiple types of access and control.
- Virtual card added to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet will work via debit in case of a restricted access system (tube in London) operating via contactless card readers.
- At the same time, every ticket activation is recorded in the ticket wallet with its unique QR code to form proof of purchase.
- The amount on the virtual card is determined on the “best price” native citymapper algorithm filter and cross-checked with owned long-term tickets to get the best deal and billed to users credit card.
- As the basis, virtual card can be adapted per city to different systems via integration with transit authorities systems and get better deals.
A rough sketch how I imagined the feature in the existing app:
- Addition of another button on the starting page
2. Addition of a ticket icon next to the pricing of the route
3. Color code for fares covered by existing long-term abonnements — both on the map and parts of the route
Addition of a reminder next to “go” button about necessity of buying some of the tickets for this jouney.
4. A simple tickets basket using long-term tickets as discount
5. Tickets screen
6. Dropdown on the journey map with access to ticket QR code
7. 8. 9. separate screens for virtual card wallet if needed for card reader entry gate and QR screen for ticket controllers and entry gate readers
I would never think one can be afraid of being harassed by ticket controllers. That one came as quite a surprise.
Comparing user needs with bigger studies and trends showed me surprising connections and made me sensitive to new angles when designing. Putting convenience over control was one of such surprising finds.
I also know now more about useful bugs, glitches, and cheats around public transport than I thought ever possible.
Read the full article here
