Challenge 1 — Ironhack’s Prework: UrbanGo

Hello, future reader! As my first step at the course of Ux/Ui Designer from Ironhack Bootcamp — São Paulo, and also the beginning of my path through the area, I must solve a common problem that happens to most of users of public transport applying the principles of the Design Thinking.

About the Company

Based in Silicon Valley, California, UrbanGo is a public transit and mapping startup. Their goal is to solve the problems of urban mobility by offering the quickest and cheapest public and private transport routes to their users. UrbanGo already have an app that the users can set a starting point and a destination, and the application provides different multimodal routes with the estimated time and the cost of them.

The problem

Although the current product of UrbanGo already solves some of the main problems of the urban mobility, there are some pains points: having to purchase different kinds of tickets and also to purchasing them by different channels.

Public transport tickets come in paper or plastic cards. Very often buying different public transport tickets is necessary to go from point A to B. And the process of buying these tickets can be very annoying (queues, vending machines that don’t work, etc.).

Finally, things like pricing or purchasing the correct ticket can become a real pain when you are abroad.

Research

A s a starting point of this project, I asked myself some questions to get the firsts insights about the topic.

What problem are you solving?

Simplify and unify the process to purchasing tickets for the users.

Who is your audience?

Everyone who uses public transport abroad.

Who is your client’s competition?

Google Maps, Maps (from Apple), Citymapper, Maps.me and Bing Maps.

What’s the tone/feeling?

The app must be user-friendly, accessible and efficient.

For supporting this investigation and also to catch more information about general users experiences regarding the thematic, I did an open-questioning interview, focusing on the following topics:

· Experience about purchasing tickets (local/abroad);

· Thoughts about the types of the tickets (physical/digital)

· Comfortability about new technologies;

Before, I started with the interview, I did a little research of the age range of those who frequently use the public transport, and from this number I settled up my audience as people from 25–65 years old (Based in UK statistic research of 2017).

My Findings

I t was possible verify that the users interviewed presents a quite similar perception, experiences and issues on what refers to purchasing tickets abroad.

In relation of purchasing the ticket online, 80% confirm preference for that way, because of the convenience and facility with the web interface and also point it out that you can simultaneously check for information about the public transport in the place that you are going to. Also mentioning the problems with queues, machines that don’t work properly or even that don’t accept card, language issues and off course, the time spares.

Concerning about the type of the ticket — digital or physical — most of the interviewed showed predilection for the digital one, by the reason of the physical ticket you could lose, damage or even forget. Besides the digital format it’s easiest to storage in smartphones or wearables devices, for example.

Some of them thought interesting that the app could have a feature for tourist users, offering suggestions about attractions in that place — like landmarks, alerts about insecure areas and even facilities to acquire promotional tickets, as well as highlighting the best option for your necessity.

Problem-solving

After collecting and organizing all the data from the interview, I finally start to come up with some solutions:

· Show all available tickets offers for the user, so that he/she can analyze which ones best suit their necessity.

· Incorporate a purchasing area.

· Link the app with the bank account.

· Create a wallet to store all kind of tickets, such as transportation ones, hotel, car rentals, tours, etc.

· Tourism information area, that you can search for excursions, things to do and restaurants recommendations.

· Real-time traffic alerts like, jams, accidents, construction works, and approaching unsafe areas.

Prototype

The opening screen of the app starts with a search area for the user to add a location, could be a current one or the one you are planning to go, followed by 3 categories to choose which thematic area of the application you want to explore. Listed as: maps, wallet and tourism.

The first category is actually the main goal of the app — maps— that will find out the cheapest and quickest routes of public and private transportion. After the user choose a location, adding some filters that best suit his/hers needs, and elect the route, would appear a window questioning if he/she wants to purchase a ticket. If the user wants to buy a ticket, he/she would make the payment synchronizing the app with his/hers bank account. After the payment is done, the ticket appears as a QR code and then you could add it to your wallet inside the application.

Maps user-interaction:

Tourism area user-interaction:

Key things that I learned

All parts of the Design Thinking Methodology are important and each one contributes significantly to the final result. If you leave one thing unclear or not defined, you will have to go back and clarify to be able to proceed for the next stage, it’s a very linear process.

For me,it was crucial to understand how the interview with the users provides lots of good insights and help me so much on focusing in the real problems to be solve. I take from this challenge the importance of the user’s opinion and how it is essential for the process of decision-making.