Rideshare comes to public transit
There's so much to improve in the public transit industry. Especially in the USA where public transit is neglected and car dependency is at an all-time high. Bus Buddy wants to change this and apply the improvements made by rideshare apps to our public transit. Bus Buddy is a transportation app that aims to make transportation easier with live ETAs, modern visual navigation, and easy accessibility options.
Cut the line & skip ahead to the final designHaving to take the ridged nature of public transportation and trying to apply rideshare features is difficult. Live ETAS & live updates maps are tough implementation.
I was the UX Designer and UX researcher who designed the entire app prototype and had the product vision. I had a role in every process from discovery to develop. I had assistance from the Thinkful staff, and fellow students, and took around a month.
User surveys, competitive analysis, user flows, user stories, user personas, wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing.
The approach is creating an easy-to-navigate transportation app. One that communicates information clearly and makes the end users day to day easier.
There are 4 main pain points I wanted to focus on in this case study.
Through the process of user surveys, interviews, and other forms of research, I was able to gain valuable insight into what users want in their transportation app. You can tap on the image on the right to see all the data yourself, along with a competitive analysis, and a user persona. You can click on the images to enlarge them. If you want a simple breakdown, check the takeaways here:
To understand whom we are designing for, I created some Information architecture. Information architecture (IA) focuses on organizing, structuring, and labeling content effectively and sustainably. The goal is to help users find information and complete tasks. Below I have a user persona, user stories, and user flows.
I started brainstorming and coming up with possible design solutions with a focus on vertical UI and started exploring how to convert horizontal streams to vertical clips.
These are the low fidelity wireframes. They are created in grayscale and work as a low fidelity prototype.
LoFi Prototype
Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice since it gives direct input on how real users use the system. After conducting testing patterns arose. These patterns would improve the overall design if implemented.
In conclusion, Bus Buddy as a first UX project was a success. I learned so much about the UX process and design thinking. Prototyping was confusing at first but when finished I had a new rich understanding of how Figma works. If given more time I would implement what I gleaned from user testing and would map out more of the experience. Overall, Bus Buddy was an amazing first project to kickstart my future UX endeavors.
