IronHack PreWork — Citymapper
Challenge 1: Design Thinking
Citymapper is a public transit app and mapping service startup based in London.
It is free of charge for its users and it’s supported by a mobile app on smaller portable devices (smartphones, tablets) and by an Internet website.
It serves about 58 cities and metropolitan areas globally.
Their goal is to help and facilitate commuters and their daily needs,
providing clear and fast directions to them.
As part of my PreWork assignments for the UX/UI IronHack Bootcamp starting in March, I’ve been asked to prototype an additional feature to the app.
The goal is to solve the hassle of purchasing different public transport tickets by different channels while moving around a city.
A New Process
The interesting challenge for this project has been to apply the Design Thinking principles to solve this issue.
Design Thinking is an iterative process where the main focus is the user and its interaction with the product, challenging assumptions and identify strategies and solutions that might be not perceptible on our initial understanding.
Therefore, it helps us to solve problems thanks to a solution-based, hands-on approach.
The process is divided into 5 phases:
- Empathize — connect and understand my users
- Define — the users' needs, their problem and my insight into the findings
- Ideate — challenging assumptions, brainstorming ideas for solutions and choosing a path to solve the problem
- Prototype — start creating and making the solutions concrete and real
- Test — AKA “execute”, is the phase where we refine the solution, being the product tested on a full-scale basis
In this case, I stopped at the “Prototype” phase, without going into the actual final testing phase leaving the design thinking process incomplete but still, interesting.
Nonetheless, I will be eager to come back on the project when I will have a better understanding of the last part of the process!
Now, let’s go through them and let’s see what I found out!
Phase 1: Empathize
My goal for this phase was to connect and understand through interviewing users as much as possible their point of view regarding moving around a city, their approach and the negative side of it.
After an initial introspective checklist and investigation, I identified my audience and chose 5 people from my own environment, suitable for giving valuable and interesting feedback regarding the subject.
Some info about them:
- between 20–35 years old;
- three of them are living in major European cities, using public transportation mostly every day;
- the other two are leaving in towns where apps for public transportation are not available, one an experienced “nomad” and backpacker (with language proficiency), the other having travelled way less and with fewer language skills.
The next step was to interview them — face-to-face or remotely— having the actual interviews introduced by some small talk and ice-breaker questions and such.
I helped myself with the following list of questions as an interview guide.
- Could you walk me through your usual approach to moving around in a city?
- What is your favourite way of moving around?
- You mentioned public transportation, could you tell me about your experience with it?
- Is there a side of the use that is particularly problematic for you?
If so, which one? And, in your opinion, why is that? - Has COVID-19 affected your approach and mindset while using public transportation? How?
- You mentioned tickets, tell me about how would you usually buy do it.
What do you like about it and instead, what does annoy you? - Do you use any digital system to move around/buy the tickets?
What do you like about it? What could be improved and what is missing in your opinion? - You mentioned mobile apps. If so, how was your experience with them? What is lacking and what could be added?
Pain Points
Before switching to the second phase and define the actual issue, I gathered and created a list with all phrases and observation pointing out some recurring issues:
☒ I often don’t understand which ticket type is required
☒ Sometimes, I forget to or don’t manage to validate my ticket
☒ I have no time to queue to buy the ticket
☒ Especially with Covid, I would like to avoid direct contact as much as possible
☒ It’s not always possible to find a functioning automat/validating machine
☒ I lost or forgot home the monthly ticket, in worst cases, receiving a fine since I didn’t notice until they checked me
☒ I couldn’t understand the process or instructions due to language barriers
☒ I couldn’t pay the tickets with a card, and normally I don’t have coins/small change — I took the risk to travel without a ticket but wasn’t happy
☒ Should I punch my ticket? Or is it already stamped?
☒ When travelling long distances during the day, I find it difficult keeping track of every ticket to buy
☒ Where should I go when I lose the ticket? Sometimes, they won’t even refund it or give me a copy if I’m not registered in someway
Phase 2: Define
So, having gathered all these interesting insights and observation I proceed with defining the real issue to be addressed.
Every user has its own way of approaching mobility in the city and experiencing various issues with moving around but the recurring and common problem is definitely related to ticketing and related dynamics.
Since moving with transportation requires sometimes various changes and complicated itineraries, one of the main needs is to have an uncomplicated, clear and easy-to-use system to handle ticketing to focus better on the journey itself.
Moreover, with the Covid-19 situation, the need of having autonomous and self-managed transport management is even more accentuated.
Also, payments through services such as PayPal, Credit Card, Pre-Paid cards etc, are way more used and the users feel eager to utilise them.
Therefore, my problem statement could be summarised as follows:
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How can we make the process of buying, using and obtaining tickets, as inclusive, fast and contact-free for the user as possible?
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Phase 3: Ideate💡
Taking into consideration the statement defined in the previous phase, I started brainstorming both through drawings and noting as many solutions as possible they could come to mind.
From all the ideas, some of them weren’t really realistic, they were repeating themselves or simply not really giving a useful solution to the problem.
With a bit of effort and some user flow wireframe sketching work, I managed to select three main ideas to develop further:
This option requires the user to have access to contactless payment and the app company should produce an agreement with the local transportation system to create valid tickets.
- Digital on-spot Ticketing: after selecting an itinerary, the tickets required for travelling are shown by the app. The user can choose which one to buy and they’re being added to the cart. When all the planning is made, or simply no more tickets are needed, the user can check out and proceed with his favourite way of remote payment.
The tickets are then released as QR Code, and stored in the app local database.
This option requires the user to create an account in advance, have a contactless payment method and use top credit in the app.
The company needs to contract the function with the local transportation organisation and then handle the payment to them.
- Digital Wallet: the app uses a form of internal credit/payment, the user tops the credit before travelling and automatically takes the money from the balance when a ticket is bought and generated through the app.
This option would be most useful for tourist, or for the first period of moving around in the city (if just moved in for example).
However, NFC technology is not diffused yet, so it would require most local transportation companies to update their systems accordingly.
- Ticket Guide: that’s how I called the option using Near Field Contact technology. Basically, the app gives you directions and instructions on how and where to buy tickets (shows the points on a map, with images and a clear interface on how to obtain the tickets).
When reached the point, it uses near field communication in order to automatically request the right ticket to the vendor machine.
The user pays with the methods requested by the machine.
Phase 4: Prototype
The idea that I chose to develop further is the Digital On-Spot Ticket for the following reasons:
- It allows you to use any contactless payment method to buy your tickets;
- It requires fewer interactions to obtain a ticket;
- The creation of an account is suggested, but it’s not required.
- It’s a system already used by local transportation companies, so will be easier to integrate into the user flow since the user might be already using a similar system.
My solution is to add an additional button on the itinerary screen from where is possible to access the ticketing function.
I chose to represent the process of buying two different types of tickets required for a single itinerary with the default payment method.
Wireframe
The User-Flow
- User (logged-in and signed-up) access app
- Select destination.
- Select itinerary.
- Check itinerary and tickets required — Access Ticket screen.
- Select Tickets to buy and Continue.
- Select a method of payment and finalize.
- Tickets are received.
- Back to itinerary screen, with Tickets availability updated.
To Conclude
This has been my first design thinking based task experience.
First, the empathize part is an enriching moment:
it allows me to see others point of view and thinking outside of my box,
while the other analyses and processes daily activities, becoming more conscious and aware of them.
Second, I actually worked with CityMapper many times, when working in Operations & Logistics in my previous job (i.e. Tour Operator / Travel Agency) but to be honest I just realized how I just used it without really thinking about the deeper why.
Moreover, Berlin (the city where I live) has a really good digital system for public transportation — offering an easy-to-use and functional ticketing system.
It has been a great inspiration.
Finally, besides an initial panicking while trying to figure out what to actually do (oops!) I really enjoyed the time spent on this task, and I’m definitely looking forward to developing my Design Thinking skills even further embracing the upcoming challenges!
