Year 2018
A UX case study delivering an interactive prototype with new Features for Public Transport Victoria (PTV) app.
My role
UX/UI Design
Mobile Design
UX Strategy
My work involved
Research (Interviews & surveys)
Affinity mapping
Problem & solution statements
Personas
Competitors analysis
Ideation/Sketching
Feature Prioritisation
user flow
Usability testing
interactive Lo-fi to mid-fi wireframes
Client
Public Transport Victoria
Public Transport Victoria (PTV) provides public transport services in Melbourne and the state of Victoria, which includes metropolitan buses, trains, trams and regional buses and trains (V-line).
Project
The brief for this project was to conceptualise the following new features for the PTV app, while following the brand style guidelines to deliver an interactive prototype.
Better support multi-modal travel with particular emphasis on travel planning and avoiding delays
Promote a shift to walking and cycling by integrating data and features from Melbourne Bike Share
Better promote ticketing information and purchase
Over a 2-week design sprint, I worked alongside three UX designers and focussed our interface design for iOS. We all worked on all aspects of the design process and used Trello to organise and prioritise our tasks for each day.
User Research
We interviewed 8 users that have used the PTV app and also created a survey that was sent out to the public with 79 responses. From the interviews we found the following patterns in our affinity mapping process.
Affinity Map
Key Findings
Inefficient Journey Planning Functionality
Inaccurate Delay & Disruption Updates
Unclear Ticketing and Purchasing Information
A love for Google Maps, City Mapper and Metro Notify
Survey
The quantitative and qualitative data from the survey supported our discovered patterns from our interviews, which reassured the team judgments towards the key findings.
Key insights
What’s your main purpose for using the PTV app?
Mapping my journey
To plan my journeys
Check timetables
Next train time
Checking train times
How do you find out about disruptions on your journey?
Going to the Vline website or checking next 5 journeys on the app
Delays on Google Map app
Metro Notify app
Listening to announcements when I arrive at the train station or receive the news from a colleague, friend or family member.
Tram Tracker lets me know about disruptions on train or tram routes but otherwise they don’t really have a way of finding out.
City Mapper gives alerts
Metro trains website
Problem
How might we provide commuters with accurate travel information so that they can better plan their journey.
Solution
Redesign the PTV App for IOS which provides commuters info about disruptions and help them efficiently plan their journey through different modes of transport
Persona Development
We had a group discussion about our data to define who is our user. We identified our persona to be a frequent commuter with public transport but also enjoys riding his bicycle when he can.
Competitive Analysis - Strengths and Weakness
From our user research we identified 6 main mobile apps including the PTV app that our users use and conducted a competitive analysis to identify their strengths and weakness.
Key insights
Apps either started with a map or a journey planner
Journey planner function easy to use, offers variety of transport modes, shows the user with all the stations while travelling your route with accurate times
Simple to view map shows locations of trams, trains and Myki kiosks
Most apps used tab bar navigation for easy access to primary go-to tasks
Easy functionality was high across all apps
Competitive Analysis - Feature Comparison
As we identified our competitors we decided to do a feature comparison analysis to help us gauge what features they all have in common so we could accommodate them in our design.
Feature Prioritisation and MVP
From our research and thorough feature comparison analysis we plotted them in a feature prioritisation matrix. We then voted on the features based on Primary, Secondary and Future features to meet with the project brief and for our MVP checklist.
Ideation
To start our Ideation process, the team decided to do (Crazy 8’s Sketching Method) which is 8 sketches in 5 mins. We then had a group review, critique and voted on ideas for each screen, and followed through with a group sketch of our paper prototype for our two scenarios.
User flow for scenario 1
The user flow for scenario 1 is showcasing the process of identifying if there are train disruptions to his trainline and if so find a faster train route to home.
User flow for Scenario 2
The user flow for scenario 2 shows a straight forward process for finding a bike on the PTV app.
Paper Prototype
After testing our first paper prototype, iterating our findings from user testing and repeating the process again, we clearly gained effective information from all our six users on what they wanted and needed, when interacting with our prototype. The following are some key improvements we implemented:
After the usability testing for Scenario 1& 2, we moved our paper prototypes to wireframes using Sketch and Figma — this allowed us to collaborate whilst working on assigned screens individually.
Scenario 1
Matt is working late tonight and received a text message from a colleague informing him of major delays on the train network. Matt needs to know if there are train disruptions to his trainline and if so find a faster train route to home.
Paper prototype for scenario 1
Home Screen
What worked?
Map shows users current location
Weather information
Favourites star
What didn’t work?
Static maps at the bottom was confusing
Users wanted to see disruptions on their saved places
Couldn’t see the disruptions icon
Action Items
Changed the name to “Network Maps” which people understood
If there are disruptions there will be a symbol indicating.
Created a button for disruptions with the icon
Journey Planner
What worked?
Train times accurate
Alert when user is arriving at your station
What didn’t work?
How to start the journey
Alert felt like a warning
Action Items
Provided a start button
Changed the alter wording to sound softer/ friendlier
Disruption Info
What worked?
Showed which lines have disruptions & which lines are operating normally.
What didn’t work?
Unclear if delay was minor or major
Action Items
Included more information at the top of the page informing users of what type of delay they
Scenario 2
Matt works in the city and caught the train in this morning. He is going to meet his wife for dinner after work and would like to use a Melbourne Bike Share bicycle to get there.
Matt needs to locate the closest available bike and find directions to help him get to it.
Paper prototype for scenario 2
Home Screen
What worked?
Weather info
Show map and your current location
Symbol on homepage
What didn’t work?
No feature to zoom in and out on map
Action Items
Updating Map screen to be able to zoom in and out
Melbourne Bike Share Information
What worked?
Bike near you feature is user-friendly
What didn’t work?
Number on bikes was a little unclear
Action Items
Including words “available” to make it clearer for bike availabilities
Navigation to Bike
What worked?
Easy and clear navigation to Bikeshare dock
Good to have a reminder feature
What didn’t work?
Confusing about the bike language BIKE / PARK Button
Action Items
Simplify button language to “Find bike” and” Dock bike”
Future Steps
Further promote walking and cycling in Melbourne by:
Build out the PTV profile account to offer more functionality
Profiles track and measure healthy habits such as walking, cycling and users carbon footprint.
Incentivised schemes partnering with Nike and Boost Juice to encourage users to walk and cycle more regularly
Free workshops geared towards educating riders and drivers around how to better share our roads - Campaign Slogan - “Sharing is Caring”
. . .
Learnings
Using Trello allowed us to put a schedule in place and clearly outline what tasks were assigned to who and what day they need to be completed by.
Morning stand-ups allowed us to set out tasks and goals to achieve for the day; while end of day stand-ups helped us discover what we accomplished for the day and what work was required to do over night or for the next day.
Having trust in your teammates and holding them accountable for the tasks they were assigned to, helped in the success of our project.