Public transport, a lifeline for many.

Västtrafik's digital services are a crucial tool for nearly 450,000 daily users, highlighting the service's significant impact on people's mobility and overall quality of life. This case study unfolds our journey to refine Västtrafik's digital touchpoints – to meet and exceed modern user expectations.

Imagine this: you're rushing to catch a tram or bus, and you find yourself wrestling with a complex ticket purchasing process. Frustration mounts as the clock ticks.

This wasn't just a hypothetical situation but a real challenge faced by Västtrafik's users. Our mission was to untangle this amongst other issues, crafting an intuitive, stress-free experience.

But how do you visually enhance a complex public transport app with loads of important information to communicate and with minimal space?

Unveiling the Hidden Truths

We dove into the world of our users, employing personas based on surveys to mirror the users journeys. These personas showed tha the users prioritise efficiency and effectiveness , mirroring the user's desire for a quick and straightforward path to their goals. This approach was instrumental in tailoring our research and design to meet actual user needs.

Using moderated usability testing with Lookback based on scenarios from the persona , we gathered rich insights into user behaviour, emotions, and thought processes. We employed a mix of qualitative coding and statistical analysis to distill these insights into actionable themes.

Some of our findings included the conclusion that users had difficulty accessing the student discount. Additionally, participants were noticeably confused and frustrated with the favourite trip function, as well as with locating travel options, such as finding the bike option.

We compared the metrics from tests on the original app with the metrics taken during the wireframe test of our solutions.

Our solutions significantly improved the user experience. The introduction of a student ticket button reduced the time to find a student ticket by 25%. However, challenges remained with the favorite function, indicating the need for further refinement.

Adding a button for a student ticket in order to enhance the user experience and guarantee the users will find it. This was based on the need to build a inclusive app.

To help users find their list of favourite trips, we created a separate tab exclusively for favourite markings. We also added a heart icon that appears when a full trip is searched. This approach eliminates the need for users to navigate back and then mark a favourite in the 'recent trips and favourites' list, thereby reducing cognitive load.

I realised the importance of background checks and understanding a person's familiarity with a product, especially if it already exists in the market. Two participants were already familiar with Västtrafik, but one had never seen it before. It is important not to overlook this factor, even if it means putting more effort into finding suitable participants, as it can impact the result.

Allocate resources more effectively

During the wireframing phase, we sometimes felt the urge to add more details to the design to improve its visual appeal before testing. As we move forward, I learned the importance of staying focused on our testing objectives and limiting the amount of time spent on mid-fi wireframing. In future projects, I will work on setting clear time constraints for wireframing to ensure we allocate our resources more effectively.