IRONHACK’S PREWORK CHALLENGE 1: DESIGN THINKING
My name is Matilde Silveira and I’m now starting the UX/UI Design Bootcamp in Lisbon. This is my first challenge and the goal is to create an app that solves the pain of having to purchase different public transport tickets by different channels.
URBAN GO APP
UrbanGo is a public transit and mapping startup based in Silicon Valley. Their goal is to solve the problems of urban mobility by offering the quickest and cheapest public and private transport routes to their users.
In this mobile app, the users select a starting point and a destination, and the app provides different multimodal routes with the estimated time and the cost of them.
PROBLEMS
- The different amount of public transport tickets the users have to purchase;
- The process of buying these tickets can be very annoying (queues, vending machines that don’t work, etc.);
- Pricing or purchasing the correct ticket can become a real pain when you are abroad.
SOLUTION
- Create a new feature for the app that can solve every problem mentioned, by developing an app that allows the user to buy just one ticket for the whole trip.
HOW?
- EMPHATIZE
This is the first step of Design Thinking, here you should understand the way people do things, and why, their physical and emotional needs. The easiest way to achieve this information is to interview people that usually use public transports.
QUESTIONS
- What public transport do you use the most? What is your favourite one?
- How do you get your ticket? Do you have problems with that?
- Does your city have a good public transportation system? What could be improved about it?
- When you visit a new place, the transportation system can be confusing. What good or bad transport experiences have you had in a new place?
- Do you use any app to facilitate your trip? Which one? Do you think that it could be better?
- Would you consider buying your tickets through an app? Does it feel secure or do you prefer the common way?
- Do you think that an app could solve all your problems?
2.DEFINE
After becoming an expert on the subject, this stage is about making sense of the widespread information you have gathered, identifying the main problem, and try to solve it.
PROBLEMS
- Losing their physical tickets
- Not knowing what’s the best route for their destination and getting lost
- Combining different type of transportations (the schedule doesn’t match)
- Language difficulties when traveling abroad
- No network in some stations
CONCLUSION
Most of the interviewees said that they would like to use an app, where you could buy your online tickets, check what’s the best way to get somewhere, contributing to cheaper and faster dislocation. When traveling abroad, having an app in your mother language, with the same facilities would contribute to a better experience in general.
3.IDEATE
This step is called ideate, it provides both the fuel and also the source material for building prototypes and getting innovative solutions.
The idea is to:
- Build an app easy and simple to use, that allows the users to buy a single ticket that includes all the public transports;
- Allow the user to pay with a QR code. The purchased ticket can be saved in a “wallet”, offering the possibility to pay even if you’re offline;
- Be helpful, providing a “Help” button, which tells you the costs of the trip, how long it’ll take, which are the transports you should take and the ticket you should get;
- Give discounts, depending on the duration (monthly discounts), the age of the user (kids and seniors), and to people with economic issues or unemployed (students).
4.PROTOTYPE
The last step is prototype, here you gather all the information you generated through ideation and create low-resolution prototypes that are quick and cheap to make but can elicit useful feedback from users and colleagues.
ACQUIREMENTS
This challenge was very fun to accomplish, understanding each step of the Design Thinking process and how to improve an app. This is my first project, so I know it could be better, but I hope to gain some techniques to develop the next works! I believe that I can learn more with your feedback, thank you all for reading!