Brantford Transit Eye

Overcoming obstacles of a virtual world to build connection and understanding through empathetic video-conferencing experiences.

Time
3 months
Role
UX/UI Designer, User Researcher
Project Type
Mobile Application

Project Overview

Problem: The City of Brantford wanted to cut down municipal emission rates in an effort to create a more green economy. ​

‍Solution: During the design process, our team found that that individual car use contributed to a large portion of city carbon emissions, and so we  sought to create an app to encourage greener travel with the public transit system.

My Process

User Research

To gain better a better understanding of who our users were, we conducted a variety of semi-structured interviews with Brantford residents. In terms of travel, we noticed:.
  • individuals who frequently take the bus find that the transit system is unreliable (late, not showing up etc.)
  • frequent transit users often seek to buy a car in the future for more self-dependence
  • car users viewed the transit system as "unreliable" and "unideal" based on previous experience and word-of-mouth stories
A persona developed after user interviews to conceptualize the average car user.

Journey Map

Since the words "unreliable" and "frustrating" came up multiple times during our interviews, we decided to explore where exactly users run into pain points during their journey of taking the transit. After compiling our user research data, we developed a journey map that highlights frequent issues.
A journey map that documents the transit journey from interest to arrival.

The Three Lenses of Innovation

Our research findings led us to the conclusion that we needed to improve the public view of transit – but we recognized that we also had to work within the constraints of our project. With that in mind, we decided to develop an app and ensure it fulfilled the three lenses of innovation:
  • Feasible: the app proposal worked within the resource constraints
  • Viable: an app could be used in the short term and long term to decrease carbon emissions
  • Desirable: the city needed a solution that would drive down carbon emissions, which our app would aim to accomplish by increasing public transit use.

Rapid Sketching and Wireframes

After our lengthy period of debate, we started to ideate and develop the look of our app. Collaborative rapid sketching sessions guided us to eventual wireframe development on Adobe XD to lay out the foundation of the app.
Whiteboard sketches of the home and commute pages
Cleaned up wireframes to capture additional features.

Usability Testing

Usability testing was conducted using refined versions of our wireframes. Using the think-aloud technique, we instructed users to perform tasks, such as planning a route home.​​

When we remade the journey map based on data collected from user testing, we found new pain points to improve on our app design:
  • A key insight that arose from usability testing was that some features weren't intuitive. Users struggled to identify how to pick a route, which one to pick, and how to view different paths.
  • Another issue was that users struggled to set notifications up for specific routes. Buttons were unclear, and users struggled to set a time range to recieve for transit alerts.

Refinement

We refined our pages through user feedback and ideation sessions to create pages that were more usable and easy to navigate.

My Routes and Notifications

These pages took user feedback into consideration by grouping route information and creating clear sections to edit routes and set transit notifications times.

Live Transit Tracking

In order to let users view transit status in real time, we developed a live transit tracking page that displays the location of the bus, and its distance from the user's current location.

The Final Product

The final prototype of the Brantford Transit Eye came to life on Adobe XD. This prototype was presented to the City of Brantford in our final proposal.

Reflection


The development of the Brantford Transit Eye was a wonderful learning experience that introduced me to the world of UX for the first time as a student. I really enjoyed the conducting interviews with users for this app; as a non-local student, the interviews opened my eyes to life as a commuter in the City of Brantford.

Although the Brantford Transit Eye project was concluded at the final prototype above, there are a few things I would have liked to do to improve and build upon this project if given more time. Mainly, I would like to focus on further refining the prototype with further usability testing and feedback from our client to ensure the final product meets the user's and client's needs in every aspect. Looking back, I also recognize the accessibility concerns of using grey text in the app, and would change to a darker colour for improved contrast.