Introduction
Citymapper is a mobile application for web mapping and public transport. Its objective is to make it easier for users to go from point A to point B by integrating different modes of transport ( bus, metro, train, taxi, etc) but, especially public transportation. The app does a great job at providing the best routes one can use to get to the final destination by achieving a excellent user experience. However, there is still one pain point that hasn’t been solved: the process of buying a ticket. This is a very important aspect that the app should address, since it is very time consuming for daily commuters and temporary visitors to buy different tickets for each type of public transportation. In general the experience of using PT is very counterintuitive and inefficient.
So, as Ironhackers we are introduced with the challenge of creating a function within the app that could solve this tedious process of purchasing different PT tickets for different channels.
Interviews and main problems
As part of the challenge, I interviewed five frequent users of PT who have had frustrating experiences at home and abroad.
Some of the questions were:
- What type of PT do you typically use?
2. What is your experience with PT when you go abroad?
3. Tell me an experience where you found the process of getting from point A to B in PT to be particularly frustrating?
4. What would an ideal experience look like for you when using PT?
5. What do you think about the purchase of the ticket?
After interviewing users there were some main problems that remained consistent across the different responses.
- Long lines at the machines and absent personnel to help out w/ problems.
- Counterintuitive instructions at stations
- Carrying around cards/tickets that are easy to lose.
- Purchasing several trips at once because its “more convenient” and then never end up using
- Having to use cash for buses.
- Different modes of payments for different channels.
The main problem for the people I interviewed was the payment method at the stations. They all said that arriving to a city and catching the metro, train or bus was a pain, especially figuring out what type of packages to buy for their stay. Most of them said they preferred to pay exactly for what they used because they didn't know how much trips they would do by public transportation.
Solution and prototype
Therefore, I decided to integrate a feature within the app where you could pay for the route of your choice, then that would generate a QR code which could be added to your apple wallet. You would also have a screen where you are able to view your past trips.
Learnings
One of the things I learned about this challenge is that creating the correct interview questions is way harder than I thought. And it is probably one of the most important steps of the process because this is how you are going to get the best insights from users.
Also, prototyping is a challenging task but it is very useful for visualizing the whole process. I really enjoyed sketching and thinking about the best possible way to carry out the design.
