Public Transport in Sydney

UX Research | Service Design

Concept Project | 2 Week Sprint |
Team: 2 UX Designers | My Role: UX Designer

Encourage people to use more public transport during off peak times, through improving information design and enhancing the experience.

Project Overview

“How might we encourage people to use public transport more during the off-peak time?”

Public transport is not only about functional, but also reliability, usability and pleasure. When comparing the public transport system in Sydney to the one in Tokyo, we can plot the following Aarron Walter's hierarchy of user needs:

This project is trying to enhance Sydney public transport from functional level to reliable or usable level.

Task

Encourage people to use public transport more during the off-peak time

Approach

Observe→Learn→Understand→Design→Iterate

Problem

“How much did I pay? Where to get on/off? I don’t know...”

Pain Points

Most of the passengers don't know exactly how much they spent on the last trip of public transport
Low balance in your opal card can stop you from a pleasant trip

About Offline Touchpoint

Not enough touchpoint for people to understand the fare system
Passengers who are the first time riding on the route or new to the city, don’t really know where to get on or off

About Online Touchpoint

There’s not a lot of reason to use the official sources
They do not recognise the fare checking function in Opal Card App
Cannot obtain fare information easier on the official website

Solution

“I use public transport everyday, I just need some assistance when I’m not riding the daily route.”

Passengers love the experience of riding on public transport
Primary solution: provide a more accessible information system for passengers
Focus on offline touchpoints rather than existing online touchpoints

Bus Stand Re-design

Before

After

Details

Before

After

Before

After

Online Information Re-design

Before

After

Process

Observe

“I can’t find the right bus stand. Where is Stand B?”

We walked around the Sydney CBD area and observed how people are using public transport in peak and off-peak times.

Observations

The blue ‘B’ representing buses is unclear when the stand is also ‘B’ and gets lost when placed onto a blue stand.
The fares, benefits and concession information doesn’t appear on any signage.

Learn

“I travel on public transport every day, but I’m still not sure about how much I’m paying.”

We talked to 10 people while they are waiting for their bus in the Sydney CBD area. We are aimed to learn about their experiences and how they feel when using public transport.

What We’ve Learnt

People aren’t sure about how much they are spending
People aren’t sure when they’ve arrived at their destination because the information isn’t clear
We met many students who:
- Travel frequently during off-peak times
- Aren’t earning any income
- Rely on public transport because they don’t own a car

Understand

“So… How much does it cost?”

Discover Insights by Empathy & Affinity Map

We obtained a lot of information from the interviews and we wanted to extract the insights from it.

Insights

People have difficulty obtaining information in current systems
People do not understand the benefits and concessions

Archetype

Students are using public transport a lot already
They don’t feel comfortable about using the current public transport system
Our solution should not only benefit students but for ALL people using public transport

Discover Opportunities by Experience Journey

Set a scenario to help Amy (Money Mindful Mover) achieve her goals
Create an experience journey

Bus Journey

Opportunities

The navigational signage isn’t clear
The signage for Stand B at the bus stop marked with a ‘B’ is confusing
Amy is unsure about the fares of her trip
Amy is unsure when she arrived at her destination

What can we do now?

“What solution are we going to focus on this timeframe? There are some many options.”

Hypothesis

We obtained a lot of information from the interviews and we wanted to extract the insights from it.

Design Directions

As the hypothesis is only a big-pictured one, we then develop 3 design directions based on the hypothesis.

Payment System/ Interface
People don’t want their low balance to disrupt their journey
Voice Announcement
People don’t get enough assistance from the current announcements
Visual/Information Communication
People have a lack of information regarding the fares, concessions and benefits

Prioritise

We cannot build all the solution at once due to the tight time frame constraints and the high cost of iteration. Therefore we use MVPs to prioritise what should we focus on first, which deliver the highest impact at relatively low cost and effort.

As a result, we decided to focus on Information communication (Fares, concessions, benefits, wayfinding etc) and information design of Website and app.

Design & Iterate

“I love it.” “I don’t like it.” “But why?”

Ideation

We looked at how Hong Kong and Japan address similar problems and how they communicate information
We looked at various types of wayfinding signage

Two things we want to use are: fares on signage and express information clearly

We sketched ideas for solutions to that would solve the pain points on the previous slide

Layout

We chose to focus on the bus journey as most of the pain points are found in the experience when riding the bus.

We changed stand named with the alphabet to stand named with numbers. (Stand A → Stand 1)
Added Fares and Benefits info to the bus stand.
Added route info together with a map, which can show how fare is charged and more information about getting off & on.

Paper Prototyping

We mocked up the bus stand and conducted usability testing with 6 people.

We provided scenario and task for the users
We observed their action and experience
We asked why to understand their motivation
We iterated rapidly after each session (2~3 users)

Iteration

Indicate the bus stops on the map

The Opal card fares Vs the ticket fares are confusing
Make the yellow used to represent buses a darker colour so it is visible
Change information at the bottom so people know what will happen when they scan the QR code

In the future

“Transport is about trust and reliability.”

Next Steps

Do some additional testing of the revised paper prototype and website changes
Create a full scale paper prototype of the revised wayfinding signage that we will test at actual bus stops, train stations, opal card machines etc
Test signages for all ferries, trains and light rail