Overview

Redesign the user interface and add a Scheduling/Planning feature for the transportation app.

Project Goal

The goals for redesigning the app are as following:

• Higher efficiency + more simplicity:

  • Simplify the steps needed to find the best route & to reduce confusion

  • Provide built-in navigation that avoids sending users to another app

• Translate users feedback into a new feature (Scheduling)

OneBusAway

Timeline:

2 months +

Project Type:

Personal project

Tools:

Adobe Illustration, Photoshop, Figma, Usability Hub

The Challenge

Create better tools for public transit users

Onebusaway was my favorite app that I needed daily at UW. It was designed by a student from UW in 2011 and now became the most popular app at school. With traffic congestion in Seattle getting worse every year, real-time information is essential for making our transit system usable.

My goals for the project were to redesign the app based on the users’ feedback and create the best experience for transit users.

☹️ ☹️ Current App Store Ratings and Reviews:

The Discovery

Step 1. Users & Audience

Use Cases & Motivations

Step 2. Understand the priority

User’s Need & Painpoints:

To evaluate the current app, I relied on all the feedback I captured from both IOS and Andriod ratings and reviews, and also with 5 usability tests. This allowed me to gain a deeper understanding through both qualitative and quantitative information.

Goal & Principle:

Since OneBusAway is not like a normal business, it was operated by a nonprofit organization. The business goal is to build a tool to make everyone’s commute a little more pleasant. (From OneBusAway creator - Brain Ferris)

The app itself’s ultimate role should be to provide a positive experience to commuters.

Features & Design Process

During the remote interview, I asked the user to complete the task, and describe the experience when he/she was using the OneBusAway app.

Here is the current flow with potential solutions based on our research:

Route Planning - Navigation

• The home page “search” function of the app can only show the bus stop only. I added a route planning feature that can provide users more options and avoid sending users to Google Maps for direction.

• Add half sheet that could provide more detailed information including walking time & distance, commute time & how many stops on the bus.

• Decrease user’s decision-making time by offering a range of filtering options to narrow down the route choices, such as by time, by route, and give the best-recommended route.

• With the availability of the filters, users can easily choose the different mode and route options, keep the users more engaged.

Home Page with notification



Trip Scheduling with Notifications

How it works:

1. Schedule a ride at any time by tap the SCHEDULE button.

2. Provide detailed information: set your leave or arrive time, destination, best route, repeat date and reminder notification.

3. Confirm the details of your upcoming trip.

4. Found your previous trip in the HISTORY tab.

5. Edit or cancel anytime by clicking the top-right menu.

Iterations: Schedule Feature Home Page

Iterations: Schedule Feature Detail Page

UI Redesign

• The current overall UI and icon selections are less dynamic, I redefined the icons and user interface that improve the user experience from the home page.

• Reorganized the flow and removed irrelevant content and icons

• Design Component

How to get direction to the school

(10 participants)

• A total 70% of participants completed all steps in an average of 35 seconds.

Schedule a Trip

(25 participants)

• A total 60% of participants completed all steps in an average of 57 seconds.

Key Learnings

• User feedback provides me with valuable insights into what the users think about the app. I was surprised that users had such high expectations of the app. But asking users for feedback is still the best way to build a solution that users will love. 🥰

• It’s important to analyze all the needs and pain points from users, but more to think about, like Business Goal, Product Impact, and Effort. Sometimes as a designer, I forget the potential workload of building a new feature. 😣

• I created components that were too focused on a single-use case. As a result, I have to create components each time that need to cover a particular scenario. I would try to develop components that not tied to a single-use case but can be reused in multiple contexts.😎