Bus Share
OVERVIEW
About the Project
Bus share is a public transportation app that helps to improve the rider’s and bus driver’s experience when interacting with the buses. Riders can use their location feature on their phone to find any available buses that are within over
a mile. Users will be able to see which buses are near them and how long it will take to reach to their location. Users will be able to see the bus routes
for buses.The app also allows the user to see all available bus routes for all available family islands.Bus Share also allows users to download maps that are available offline.
My Role:
User Research, Prototyping, UI/UX Design
Duration:
September '21 - April '22
Sector
Municiple
CONTEXT
As The Bahamas consists of limestones and low-lying islands, there are no trains or streetcars for public transportation. Since the majority of citizens are either in the lower or middle class, buses are heavily used. As opposed to bus services in Canada, or transit services anywhere around the world, in The Bahamas, buses aren't run by an organization, so they are completely independent. As long as you have a valid license and a working bus, you can become a bus driver in The Bahamas. However, as you all can already guess, over the years, there have been numerous problems for riders, bus drivers, and even drivers on the road. Due to the independence of bus drivers and the underdevelopment of buses, public transportation is in need of improvement, but nothing is being done to address that.
RESEARCH PHASE - IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
How do buses affect users in The Bahamas
How available is public transportation in The Bahamas?
What have been done over the last 10 years to improve the bus system in The Bahamas?
Using these questions, I came up with research statements that will help me narrow down the problem and what I need to look for and do.
THE PROBLEM
The bus system in The Bahamas is not user-friendly and unorganized.
RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
There are factors that should be considered and inform design of the user experience for bus rides.
To identify factors and steps needed to improve the user experience of bus rides in The Bahamas.
To create solutions that will help organize the bus system in The Bahamas.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
KEY STAKEHOLDERS
Rider
Driver
Police
Bus Driver
Pedestrian
Key stakeholders are anyone that interacts with the bus system in any form
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
In order to come up with ideas or solutions for the bus systems, I must first understand the users, in this case the riders.This template was done to gain better insights on the riders needs and goals. By doing this, it will help us gain information when creating a journey map for the rider.
USER INTERVIEWS
The research methods I used to gain a better understanding of my users are formative research which includes interviews and usability Testing and generative research which includes user personas and prototyping. To get a broader and different feedback, I interviewed three different users. A worker that uses the bus to go to work, a student that uses the bus to go to school, and a bus driver.
To ensure he would be able to make it on time to work, this user needed to access bus schedules
As he knows only one bus route, the user's main concern was having access to all the routes.
Getting as many passengers as possible is the bus driver's primary concern.
FEATURES
The main features of the app are to be able to locate buses and view different bus routes, along with having maps available offline. Since the buses over here are old, there are no vehicle tracking and bus routes are only available online on a pdf. To solve this problem, using your phone location, bus share will display buses that are nearby you within a mile's reach. Bus drivers will be able to see how many commuters there are nearby, which will also be notified to them. This app was made to be as simple as possible seeing that users of all ages including senior citizens and children will be using it. Large buttons and simple texts made it easier for anyone to use. Since there are no previous bus apps available, a simple app yet feasible app will allow anyone to use it for the first time.
APP SCREENS
USABILITY TESTING
After the usability testing, I gained insights that further influenced my final prototype. Seeing that bus drivers won’t always be on their phone, I needed to provide an example screen for notifications. In my first design, I didn’t show the bus route on the homepage or made it accessible from the home page map, that showed the buses. What if users wanted to know that bus route instead of scrolling to find it. Now users can just tap the arrow for that bus and it will show you that bus’s route. Also at the time of usability testing, I did not design the bus drivers perspective. Which I needed to do for the final prototype. I wanted it to have a similar and simpler look to the riders UI, seeing that majority of bus drivers are much older.