Team Mars tackle the Dublin Bus application
This project aims to solve some UX problems within the Dublin Bus App and innovate new functions. To select an app to tackle a brainstorming session was conducted. We dot voted on what had the broadest scope to redesign (see Appendix A).
Research
Identifying and validating a UX problem begins with research. Completing this research eliminates assumptions and develops empathy with users.
Mars conducted the qualitative research of casual observations recruiting users to walk-through the app; this provided insights on user’s needs, behaviours and attitudes.
Interestingly, at the start of their interview users stated that the app was ‘good’ (see Appendix B). However, when observed the users faced challenges in completing tasks, suggesting their perceptions of the app and the reality are different. These observations provided a foundation for our personas based on real-world cases.
Our team’s quantitative survey gained 84 responses (see Appendix C). The survey validated assumptions developed during our desk research (see Appendix D). Of our Dublin bus users, 55% use the app, a high number, but, not as large as expected from an app dedicated to the bus service. Critically, recruiting each age profile would more accurately reflect the users. The respondent’s ages reflect the ages of our peer groups (Fig 1). Our respondents only rate the Dublin bus app 3.26 out of 5.
For comparison, we conducted a competitor analysis in the google play and app store (see Appendix E). Dublin Bus app’s rating is merely 1.9 on the app store and 3.5 on the google play store, indicating that it functions better on Android than iOS. This rating is meagre when reviewed against competitors and suggests the iOS user experience is worse than Android. Competitor analysis indicates the conventions of journey planning apps. We drew inspiration from this moving forward to design.
Conducting a diary study of personal Dublin Bus use combined with its application was beneficial in underpinning observations made during the research previously mentioned (see Appendix F). Unfortunately, it is unreliable research as diary studies are longitudinal forms of qualitative research conducted over an ‘extended period’ (Salazar,2016). This study was conducted over one day on one journey due to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic.
Infrequent users could be discouraged using the app due to inconsistencies. Conducting a Heuristic Evaluation highlighted these and examined the applications’ compliance with recognised usability principles’ (Nielsen, 1994). We must address these issues moving forward (see Appendix G).
For this project, the key findings are as follows:
· People search for places, not bus stops (see Appendix H).
· Users generally use the app for well-travelled routes.
· Real-time information is the driver of use but causes much frustration with inaccuracies. (see Appendix I)
· People want information about delays.
· Notify when a selected stop is coming up. (Appendix J)
· Integration of payments. (Appendix K)
There is plenty of scope for this app to be innovated and redesigned. It is clear that we need to develop an overall better user experience with several tasks to refine (Appendix L). Our primary problem definition became;
‘How might we design an app for commuters and visitors to make catching the bus easier’
and
‘when I search for a place I want to see the routes that will take me there so I can plan my journey’.
Further to gathering our research, we created personas to identify with our user’s needs, behaviours and experiences, defining their issues with the application. Brian is our selected primary persona; he is a commuter and therefore, a frequent user (Fig 2). Anna is our selected secondary persona, she is a tourist user and therefore an extreme user (Fig 3).
Designing for Annas needs solves problems for all users (see Appendix M). Identifying these users’ pain points was completed during our as-is scenarios, subsequently to improve these pain points we created to be scenarios (Fig 4 & 5). These are valuable artefacts to refer back to at every stage of our process. They remind us whom we are designing for, and what we want to achieve to maximise the user’s experience.
References
Jakob, N. (1994). Heuristic Evaluation: How-To: Article by Jakob Nielsen. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved 11 December 2020, from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-conduct-a-heuristic-evaluation/.
Salazar, K. (2016). Diary Studies: Understanding Long-Term User Behavior and Experiences. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved 15 January 2021, from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/diary-studies/.
