A solution for commuters worried about missing their stops

Problem Background

Have you ever tried to take a short nap on the train only to wake up and find yourself at the end of the line? Or did you ever get distracted while surfing through social media posts and ended up missing your bus stop?

After researching, I found out that -
Commuters, while commuting via trains and busses are worried about missing their stops because of digital distractions, napping, and in general, being distracted while commuting.

So how might we help distracted and sleepy commuters not miss their stops?

Outcome

An app that lets users add distance and time-based alerts that notify them when they reach their alert points (eg - close to their destination) and by default at their destinations/stops which significantly decreases the chances of users from missing their stops!

A distance alert notifies them when they're a specified distance from their destination, while a time alert notifies them a set number of minutes before their estimated arrival time.

Role & Responsibilites

End-to-end UX design & research involving:
  • Primary & secondary user research
  • Usability testing
  • Ideation
  • Wireframing
  • Designing
  • Prototyping

Duration

6 weeks (Sep 2021 - Nov 2021)

Research

Background/Desk Research

Looking at various sources online, it was evident that the problem of missing stops was not uncommon. Over 20 million commuters miss their stops each year due to distractions from their smartphones (source)
But I wanted to figure out if there were more reasons than just smartphone distractions, which led me to run a survey.

Surveys

Through a survey, I tried to figure out the various reasons behind missed stops. I used a convenience sample and got 20 responses on it.

But a finding that surprised me was that most of the respondents were rather worried about missing their stops than actually missing their stops

In-depth Interviews & Analysis

In order to figure out more about this situation, I ran semi-structured interviews and gathered 7 participants with the criteria of them being commuters who travel through public busses and/or trains.

Thereafter, I used affinity mapping to analyze the data.

Findings

Here were the key findings that revealed why people felt vulnerable about missing their stops while commuting :

Unfamiliarity of location

“It’s almost like a nightmare when I have to travel to unfamiliar places”
Commuters traveling to unfamiliar places frequently check Google Maps to track their location and progress, but some get nauseous due to motion sickness and are hesitant to check their phones frequently.

Social distractions

“I often check my socials while commuting and the next thing you know is that I’m at the end of the line”
Commuters frequently use social media and check messages while commuting, but this distraction occasionally causes them to miss their stop.

Drowsiness

“I use all my willpower to not doze off when I’m communing back to home”
Some passengers, tired after a long day of work, fall asleep during their commute, which causes them to miss their stop.

Audio distractions

"It's annoying [...] there's so much commute noise, so I use music to block it. But I get so lost in the music that I often forget about my stop!"
Some commuters listen to music to ignore commute chaos, but often leads to them getting lost in music and missing their stops.

Daydreaming

“I have to constantly remain active in order to prevent myself from daydreaming”
Daydreaming during commuting causes passengers to get distracted and miss their stops.

Ideation

After brainstorming several ideas, three ideas stood out the most, out of which I decided to go with the mobile app based solution as it was the most feasible and viable.

Features & Prioritization

Keeping in mind all the pain points identified, I ideated features for the app and later prioritized them with the help of impact/effort matrix. Effort being the developmental effort. This was done to consider the feasibility behind the features.

Design

Sketches & Wireframes

Thereafter, I sketched down the features and subsequently designed mid-fidelity wireframes, with the intention to test the structure and features.

Testing

Usability Test #1

I ran a usability test with 10 participants to gauge the designs and to figure out possible issues.
80% of testers successfully completed each task
20% of testers couldn’t complete one or multiple tasks
Overall the users were happy with the app, and thought it would have a good impact. But there were few things they were confused about and needed improvement.

The three major issues identified were -
1. Users didn't understand what the additional alerts were for
2. Some users were confused about how they will receive the alert
3. Users wanted to customize alert settings

Iterations

Change 1: Contextual onboarding

I found that most of the users spent little to no time in the onboarding screens, where they were briefly explained what the alerts were for, which was likely causing the issue of them not understanding what the alerts were for!

Conclusion: Explaining the purpose of alerts in the alert page itself, by introducing a contextual onboarding experience when the user reaches alert screen for first time should remove any confusion about the purpose of alerts

Change 2: Adding alert info button and tooltips

In case user accidentally clicks out of the contextual onboarding, they might end up being confused about the purpose of alerts yet again! On top of that, users also want to know the specific use of Time and Distance alerts.
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Conclusion: Adding an info FAB (Floating Action Button) to reopen onboarding screens provides a safety net. Additionally, tooltips can quickly explain each alert type without reopening onboarding, reducing confusion for first-time users.

Change 3: Adding alert settings page

From the usability test it was found that users were confused about the way they will receive the alerts, on top of that, they wanted to customize the alert settings too.
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Conclusion: By including an option for users to check and customize the alert settings should help users be more aware of their alert settings

Final Designs

After implementing the changes, I designed the high-fidelity screens with the goal of testing the design changes with another round of usability testing!

Testing

Usability Test #2

Now it was time to test the changes that had been made, therefore I tested the designs with 8 users and this time all the users successfully completed each tasks.
100% of testers successfully completed all tasks
"I think it’d definitely make me less worried about missing my stops if I were on a new/ unfamiliar route!"



~ Participant 2
"I like it! I could set it for my regular commutes to work and maybe if I had a long subway ride. I feel confident it would help me not miss stops because I'm usually lost on my phone."

~ Participant 4
Interested to know more about this project? Feel free to get in touch

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