Busy Bus

A mid-west city has expanded is bus routes. Riders are complaining about the Washington and State intersection that now has 7 different bus lines serving it. Riders want to know which buses are coming and when so they know when to leave for the stop.

Busy Bus is a simple bus schedule application that tells the riders which buses are coming and when to the Washington and State intersection. It will also allow riders to easily identify their bus by the bus number and final destination of the bus.

Clickable Prototype

Deliverables

Survey
Competitive Analysis
Personas
User Stories
User FLows
Wireframes
Visual Design
User Testing
Clickable Prototype

Timeline

1 week

Survey

Results found that 80% of riders were frustrated with not knowing when their bus would be at the stop. 60% of riders report having to wait longer than expected for their bus at least once in the last 30 days. Most of our participants were daily riders, using the bus to get to work or school. However, some outliers were riders who only took the bus occasionally to go to an entertainment venue, or who are travelling in a city where they don’t have access to other forms of transit

Competitive Analysis

Transit

Citymapper

Google Maps

Transit, Citymapper, and Google maps all offer robust user interfaces that help a user manage multiple forms of transit to reach their destinations. The cognitive load of the screens can easily confuse riders making it difficult for them to find a simple bus schedule. All of these apps act more as a trip planner.

Personas

Daily Commuter

Age 18-35 years

Lives in a large city

Working professional/college student

Goals: Daily commuter wants to spend the least amount of time traveling as possible. This means they would like accurate information on when their regular bus will be at the stop so they know exactly when they need to leave the house.

Motivations: To save money commuting, reduce carbon footprint, and ability to do work related activities while traveling

Frustrations: Before the new routes were added, riders could simply rush to the stop when they saw a bus coming—but that doesn't work anymore because it might not be the bus that they're expecting

Infrequent Rider

Age 25-60 years

Travels to large city for events

Working professional with disposable income

Goals: Wants to easily travel to a venue in a large city to avoid traffic and parking fees at the venue

Motivations: To avoid the common frustrations of finding parking at a venue but also to enjoy the experience of being in the city.

Frustrations: Not knowing what bus to get on, or how much time it will take to get to a nearby bus stop.

Information Architecture

User Stories

As a rider I want to know what buses are coming to the nearby bus stop As a rider I want to know what time the bus will be arriving at the stop As a rider I want to know how much time it will take me to get to the stop

I focused on these 3 user stories to keep the app incredibly simple. There is no need to add trip planners or save features, so these stories were not pursued due to their scope creep.

User Flow

Wireframes

Visual Design

Mockups Version 1

Prototype and Testing

User Testing Results

Testing scenarios:

Find which buses are approaching the Washington and State intersection
Find all times the Lincoln park bus will be arriving at Washington and State

Testing process:

3 user tests were conducted and moderated in person or via Zoom through a screen share. All users were in our target audience.

Results:

All users were successful in completing both tasks.
Comments included that they would like to see if the times displayed are arrivals or departures. They would like to see an am or pm after the time. They would like the map to be interactive so that if they choose a map marker it will also click through to the bus stop screen.

Mockups Version 2

Clickable Prototype