MyTransport.Sg is a mobile application that provides the user with useful travelling information. In this project, we will focus on the areas of improvement for MyTransport.Sg app’s navigation, through the process of a Design Sprint.
The application allows the user to have quick access to bus services and traffic information. Users are also able to plan their journey with different transport options based on their travel needs.
Passengers on board the Singapore’s Mass Rapit Transit, Circle Line (photo taken before the Covid-19 pandemic).
Who are we?
We are five students starting out in the field of UX Design and this is our first time participating in a design sprint! Through this project, we learnt how to ideate and come up with ideas to prototype within a short period of time. Despite it being a tough challenge, we managed to pull through and learnt a lot through this process!
Design Sprint — The Process
Excerpt of the Design Sprint process from the book, ‘Sprint: How To Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days’, by Jake Knapp
A design sprint is a time-constrained, five-phased process that uses design thinking. This allowed us to put our skills from the previous term to good use! However, instead of finishing the sprint in 5 days, we completed the sprint over the course of 5 weeks. Each week, we would complete one phase of the design sprint.
The purpose of a design sprint is to reduce the risk when bringing a new product, service or feature into the market.
Day 1: Map
As we are part-time students, we completed each ‘design sprint’ phase over one three-hour lesson.
Choosing our Roles!
Firstly, we decided on the roles that we would take in the team. There was a Decider, a Facilitator and the other members would make up the rest of the team. At the beginning, we had to ask many questions to map out the sprint that we were going to embark on. We had to ask thought provoking questions like where we would see our product in the next two years and came up with a bunch of “Can We…?” questions to help ideate.
Sprint Goals and Questions
After recording the sprint questions and goals, we each brainstormed and created How Might We (HMW) questions for the different ways that we can improve the MyTransport.SG App. At the end of the day, we voted for the best HMWs and the Decider had the final vote!
This was the How Might We…? that our group decided while doing the first phase of mapping:
How Might We help the elderly and people with disabilities with this app?
We felt that it was an interesting direction that we could explore and there were many areas of opportunities for this particular target group. There aren’t many navigation apps that cater specifically to the elderly and people with disabilities. This is an untapped and underserved market and we could help to improve the navigation experience for this target group of people.
Day 2: Sketch
The map allowed the team to focus on a specific area to work on. From the second phase, the map served to outline and provide a structure for our solution sketches and prototype. It served as a roadmap to guide and keep us on track.
Map and Target
The map helped us visualise the problem. Despite being messy initially, coherent groupings started to form after an hour of discussion and revision:
By mapping out the user journey, we were able to see the pain points that different users would experience when they are trying to navigate from location A to location B. This allowed us to focus on the areas where we could improve their user experience when navigating.
Next, the Decider picked a user flow to focus on and this is highlighted in green on our map above.
We decided to focus on the elderly folks of more than 60 years of age, as we felt that this target group would have the biggest challenge when trying to navigate on a digital app.
Following this, we moved on to “The Four-Step Sketch” to ideate even further. Instead of brainstorming, we all started by writing down and gathering our own notes and ideas.
Crazy 8 Exercise
We also embarked on the “Crazy 8s” — a preliminary sketching exercise where we sketched a variation of an idea for a minute over eight sketches. This step can prevent groupthink which could happen in a typical brainstorming session otherwise.
The “Crazy 8s” was really crazy as we had to finish each sketch in a minute! However, through this exercise, we learnt that it was indeed possible to ideate within a minute.
Solution Sketches
Next, we progressed on to the Solution Sketches, where we each created a three-panel storyboard, making it as detailed as possible to make them self-explanatory. These Solution Sketches were anonymous, so that there would be no discrimination when we were doing the voting later.
Our team came up with many interesting and exciting ideas. In the next session, we went through the Solution Sketches and decided on a few winners!
Day 3: Decide
On Day 3 of the Design Sprint, it was nice to see our thoughts sketched out and displayed like an art gallery on the Miro Wall. These sketches were all anonymous and this was done to prevent biases when casting our votes later.
Although there were many fun ideas, we needed to be focused and decide on the best solution to execute. Our ultimate goal was to simplify the process and also propose a better platform to help the elderly and people with disabilities when they travel from place to place on a daily basis.
Our gallery:
- Heat map
Each member was given 3 dots to cast on their desirable concept. Only the Decider, Dorcas will have the privilege of an extra dot. - Feedback
Without any personal bias, the Facilitator, Cheryl would run through and understand the concept before explaining it to the other members. As she shared, the members would add their comments and ideas to improve the initial concept.
Members were then given another vote to cast the best solution in their opinion, while the Decider would also cast her Supervote to make the final call of the 3 votes.
This stage was really exciting as there were so many different ideas portrayed on the screen. It was interesting to see how everyone ideated differently despite having the same starting point. I guess this is the beauty of design where there isn’t a fixed answer for every single problem. We are always learning and growing!
Here are some interesting ideas that we decided on:
- Accessibility Function
Allowing the users to set up an “Accessibility Function” when they download the app so that they can get some accessibility features while using the app. - Empty Cabin Navigation
Having a feature that allows users to choose the most empty cabin when boarding the MRT Train. - Pairing of Family Devices
As most of the elderly were not familiar with digital applications, it might give them an ease of mind if their family member was able to pair with them on the app and be able to locate them through the app.
For family members of the elderly user, they may also feel more at ease if their loved one can sync up with them and may even actively encourage their elderly loved ones to use it.
Also, their family could help to input the location they are trying to get to if they got lost and they would only have to follow the instructions to get to their desired location.
There were so many other interesting ideas and it was honestly a tough choice for all of us.
User Test Flow
Following that, we moved to the User Test Flow exercise where each member proposed 6 steps of a journey that the users of the MyTransport.SG application.
In our storyboards, we included the winning ideas in the Solution Sketches to be included in our prototype. We then picked the best user flow that reflected the ideas that we had and moved on to the prototyping phase.
Day 4: Prototype
The fourth phase of the Design sprint was prototyping.
Firstly, we had to expand on the storyboard of the user flows that we had chosen and filled in the missing steps with more drawings. The main features that we focused on in the prototype include:
- The Accessibility Function set up when the user uses the app for the first time.
- A feature which allows users to pair with an emergency contact to share their location at all times
- Bigger Buttons and a simpler UI for the elderly who are not used to digital products.
- Notifications that would let the user know when their bus or train is arriving and when they should get off.
- Empty Carriage Navigation for ease of boarding trains.
Due to the pandemic that we were in, we did it directly on the Miro board (an online whiteboard for visual collaboration) and members could easily exchange ideas and make amendments in a short time, cohesively while working remotely. Within an hour, the prototype came into shape. We all felt a sense of achievement after completing the first draft of the prototype!
We took some time to improve and refine the screens before moving it to a live prototype. Keith took the lead to transform these initial prototypes into a low fidelity prototype on Marvel App, so that we could proceed in testing for our next task.
From this, we learnt that the first prototype is never perfect. Even though we may conclude that we had the best idea and user needs were taken into account, it may not turn out the way we initially imagine.
Here is how our prototype looks like:
Our takeaways:
The first prototype is never perfect. Even though we may conclude that we had the best idea and user needs were taken into account, it may not turn out the way we initially imagined.
Although we have some ideas about what the users want, it might not be accurate to their actual needs. The most important thing is how they feel when they are using the product.
Day 5: Interviews with Users
The goal of this user testing was to allow our team to collect feedback. This feedback would allow us to understand how the users feel about our prototype and also aid us in the direction we should take for the next steps of this product.
To have a better and clearer overall picture of the user experience, we categorised and organised them into the following:
We had both the negative and positive points from our users which we could then use to shape the next design.
Positive Results
- It allowed users to know the availability of MRT seats beforehand.
- It allowed users toggle between maps displayed.
- The app has embedded functions whereby elderly with disabilities could get immediate emergency aid.
- It will prompt users when they are nearer to their destination, so to prepare them to alight and also which exit to take.
- A voice recognition to allow users who are unable to type fluently.
- Signages like toilets and wheelchair accessibility are important not only for elderly but to the communities.
Pain-points
- User flow and navigation plays an important role in any transportation app and can be frustrating if the apps were not able to serve its purpose for the users.
Some of the feedback we received on the prototype were: - Why are there so many clicks to proceed?
- Why are the icons so small, I can hardly see (age 57 years)?
- If I get lost at any point, will there be a prompt or alert to help me?
- Why is there a prompt at the beginning? What is that for?
- Signage could be more misleading rather than guiding users if it was not clear or doesn’t serve the purpose. E.g. Maps and essential icons needed to be simple and clear.
— The toilet logos could be misunderstood as lift logos at the first sight.
— Directed road maps and MRT maps needed to be clearer.
Concluding Thoughts
As we embarked on the design process, there would be moments I’d think to myself, “I wished we could do it in person!” Cerebrally, I can understand that we’re living in unprecedented times that may very well shape a new normal, but the social creature in me really wished we had the opportunity to work closely (literally, without social distancing) together and build a sense of camaraderie in a dynamic environment, or go out and really meet the people we’re (re)designing the app for.
Perhaps, the desire to connect with the people whom we’re designing the app for is the biggest takeaway for us. The design process made us take on a different lens to try to design a useful digital experience for somebody whose everyday life can be quite divorced from the way we interact with our surroundings. As we brainstormed and researched, we were faced with the (ugly?) realisation that there are communities amongst us that are very much underrepresented and underserved in the provision of digital goods and services.
It is with this awareness that we carry beyond this assignment. We should design for real people, even if they are less visible in our day-to-day.
-
Done by: Cheryl, Dorcas, Keith, Amanda and Shazwany
