Urban Go usability optimization

In this article, I will show you how I optimized the Urban Go mobile app customers’ journey.

UrbanGo is a fictional mobile app proposing to solve urban mobility problems by offering users the fastest and cheapest public and private transport routes. However, there is one point for many users: the different amount of public transport tickets that users have to buy.

Public transport tickets come in paper or plastic cards. The process of buying these tickets can be very annoying (queues, vending machines that don’t work, etc.) and when you are abroad, the different pricing or purchasing can be frustrating.

I empathized with the needs and behavior of users regarding public transport in general. My goal here was to find insight from these people on which I could better understand their habits, their goal, their needs, their problems and their feelings, particularly in the purchase of transport tickets.

So I organized interviews with 5 persons between 28 and 35 years old, they are active people in life and who work in big cities like Paris, Montreal or Melbourne.

I asked several questions about their daily habits and the differences between cities but also to know how they managed when they were in a foreign country.

These people take public transport every day to reach their workplace. The majority take the subway because it’s a fast means of transport, it serves several stations and not expensive. It can happen to take the bus or bikes because “it’s nice to be outside when the weather is nice”.

They all use transport cards for the year or the month, so they do not necessarily feel stress or anxiety when buying transport tickets or just once a month, but the majority anticipate the day before to avoid standing in line.

When traveling, they all use a mobile app to move around, they don’t dare to venture too much into public transport when it requires a lot of change or different types of transport such as the subway, then the bus, then the taxis. They don’t know whether they can use the same ticket or not, whether to take another one, whether they can pay with their credit cards or by cash. Most use VTC because it’s simpler but it’s still expensive.

The common negatives that I noted are that these people find subways too dirty, often too crowded, the delays not well enough indicated … it’s not a moment of pleasure.

During those interviews, I selected painful points in general:

To strengthen my research, I also benchmark mapping or public transport app that customers used to use and like, then study their functionalities.

Google maps: it’s an app that everyone uses because everything is indicated above, you can choose your type of route but is not precise enough in terms of subway or bus schedules and you cannot buy tickets on it.

Uber: a VTC app that allows you to order a car transporting us from point A to point B, everything is already paid for because users have created an account and add their credit card on it. they don’t need to do anything else, they can also have promo codes but it’s still expensive and when there is a lot of traffic on the road it can be very annoying.

RATP: an app concerning public transport in Paris: trains, subway, buses which allows you to consult the routes and changes that must be made, timetables and also see the problems there are in train traffic. You can now buy tickets directly on the app but it only takes trains, metros and buses into account.

I focused on a typical persona below to solve the problem:

Which brings us to focus on those user stories:

As Anna, I want to reduce the time spent queuing so that I can optimize my public transport journey.

As Anna, I want to have my tickets in one place so that I can simplify travel abroad.

As Anna, I want to have the best possible trip at the best price so that I can spend more time enjoying my trip.

As Anna, I want to get a reward for using public transport so that I can feel valued and considered.

As Anna, I want to reduce the use of paper so that I can help conserve the environment.

And then, I classified them by priority to obtain solutions:

After all these reflections, I defined three “themes” of solutions on which I could work.

1. Develop a feature that is immediately doable and usable: the “wallet” function. Allow to buy, consult and use transport tickets with a mobile phone.

2. Create a function that offers the “best ride” based on the consumer’s affinities to facilitate their trips with prepaid or personalized cards, for example.

3. Features that can be developed later, but which are less of a priority: consult your old tickets, consult offline, loyalty points …

I started to sketch the app focusing on the first theme and second (because they are almost similar) with the functionalities, thinking about the connection between each page and their interactions, so that the user quickly finds the information he’s looking for, with the least click possible.

Tips: I use erasable slate supports in a mobile format so that I can easily erase and start my sketches.

I tested and did a test with two users, then I iterated, pre-sketched and proposed a new prototype of my solution.

User Flow:

After finalized this part, for the next steps I can develop other features like loyalty points (to encourage users to take public transportation), prepaid cards, create a position sharing and tracking function so that if the user wants to feel secure, his close to him can check his progress, the possibility to check directly on the app all the restaurants, bar, bakeries and so to have a better ride to go.

Thank you for reading!

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