Overview

The metropolitan area of the midwest has a network of public buses. They currently list the expected bus schedule on their website and post it at each bus stop. However, if you have ever used a public bus, you know that expected bus times are rarely accurate, as things like traffic, the need for longer stops to assist passengers using wheelchairs, or taking a bus out of service for maintenance can impact the schedule.

Problem

Due to expansion, numerous bus routes have been recently added. Many of those routes stop at the same bus stop. Transit officials want users to know when the next bus will arrive at Washington & State bus stop and how much time they have to get to there.

Solution

I created a public transportation mobile app that:

• Ensures all users can tell when each of the buses arrive and how much time they have to get to the Washington & State bus stop with usage of the “Bus Tracker” feature.

• Allows users to select one of seven bus lines to see a list of it’s future arrival times at the Washington & State bus stop.

• Includes optional location enabling so that users are able to view their precise location on the map to determine the distances between them and nearby bus stops. Enabling your location also allows you to receive directions to a specific bus stop.

Discovery and Research

The beginning of defining any problem is research! The goal with this research is to identify user pain points, determine the target audience, and learn what they expect me to deliver with this project.

During this stage, I had a set of questions to constantly remind myself what the research needed to answer.

• Who will use this product?

• How will they use it?

• What will they use it for?

• Does it solve the problem?

I begin by identifying my competitors strengths and weaknesses to acknowledge my threats and recognize areas of opportunity within the market.

My next approach will be to conduct a survey. After forming about 15 questions, I made the survey public and continuously posted it on various platforms.

Survey Takeaways

After gathering the results from the survey, I wanted to further empathize with the users by hosting user interviews via Zoom. I recruited 3 participants from the survey, which allowed me to gain an in-depth understanding of the user’s needs, perceptions, and experiences.

Insights

Users want a public transportation mobile app that has:

• Reoccurring updates for bus arrival times

  • “It would be nice if the bus schedule would continuously refresh/ update if there’s any delays or traffic. Kinda like your GPS, it updates the arrival time when there’s traffic.” - Laura

• GPS tracker feature

  • Referenced various “Pizza” trackers or food delivery apps (DoorDash, UberEats, etc.)

• Ability to bookmark a route

  • “I would love to be able to open the app and just have my “saved” or “likes” for places that I go to often on the bus to save time from typing it in.” - Glorivee

Information Architecture

Wireflow

Breakdown

• Users can use the search to find their desired bus stop

• Users can use the map to view the nearest stops to their precise location or entered location

• Users can view a list of bus stops displaying nearest to furthest from their location