OVERVIEW
India's western coastal area; especially Mangalore, Udupi & Kundapur is full of private buses carrying people everyday, travelling 150km via multiple routes. There are almost 200+ buses travel at regular interval. It is very difficult for the people who commute often in bus to know the timings and routes. So, I decided to take up this challenge and design a mobile app which help the users with timings and routes with the add-on features like rating and comments.
In a regional language i.e. Tulu, Rightpoi means Let's Go!
Primary goal was:
- Understand user goals and pain points
- Target people who often commute
- App should be easy and simple to use
ROLE & DURATION
Product UX/UI Designer
Research, Interview, User Journey, Prototyping, Visual design & testing
OCT, 2015
Part of a design challenge
I am not in any way affiliated to Grab or any other companies/individuals mentioned in this article. The design decisions and assumptions taken in this case study are solely based on publicly available information.
Research phase
It is my first ever on field research in the city. At this phase, I conducted user interviews in order to get a better understanding of the problem.
Preliminary Questions:
- What is your age?
- How often you travel in bus and why?
- What is the average duration to commute?
- How you find bus timing/route/bus number?
- Motivation/Pain points while commuting.
- Do you have anything to add?
Interviews
One important thing I got to know from interview, even regular commuters are want to know where is the bus now? Though they are very much sure with the timing & route, they want to know at which location the bus is travelling now(via Google map) so that they are well prepared to catch the bus in next bus stop. Well, thats an amazing feature!
But I decided to go with Minimum Viable Product(MVP) for the first time.
Few other response I got:
“I think there are lot of bus travel from this particular routes. So it's ok to stand in bus-stop and wait. (Not interested to check in App)”
Devdas Kamath ( Daily Commuter )
“I want to know the bus number and timing as soon as I type the destination.”
Unknown
“ I want to know the bus fare and total time to reach the destination.”
Ranjitha (Student)
User Journey
Information Architecture
Then I came up with application flow diagram which was a representation of all the common user needs, goals, tasks that I derived from the user interviews.
Prototype
Usability Testing
I've made a Mobile app (prototype) testing round in order to reveal possible usability problems. I have tested the prototype with my friends, family members and colleagues.
- Major usability issue was with the Time input. Painful process to input time range(from & to). Solution: Kept single input box for both from and to with the dropdown to select time and minutes. Inspiration : Android alarm settings.
- Few CTA texts changed : 'Go' to ' Find'. 'Start' to 'Rightpoi'.
- There were other remarks regarding font size and colors.
- At last, drastic changes in the actual design :)
Project Learnings
This is my first ever individual project without any Business model, Technology constraints, Brand Identity in-front. It has been a big learning curve for me. I learned to listen people and understood prototype is a powerful tool.
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