UX/UI Design - Concept Project
Instilling Confidence in Riders with BART.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit District has been in operation since 1972, and serves five counties. They provide fast, reliable, transportation to ease the mounting congestions clogging the bridges and spanning the bay.
Due to covid more people are working from home, but when the shelter in place order is more relaxed, more people will be traveling for work again. But if the public is afraid to take public transportation, traffic will be worse than before the pandemic. My goal is to help BART encourage people to take public transportation again, so they will be ready when the time is right for riders to leave their homes.
Timeline: 2 Week Design Sprint.
Role: UX/UI Designer in a team of 3.
Methods: Business Analysis, Heuristics, Competitive/Comparative Analysis, User Surveys & Interviews, Research Synthesis, Affinity Mapping, Target User Creation, User Flow Map Creation, Design Studio, Physical Application Creation, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing.
Tools: Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Optimal Workshop, Google Forms, Paper and Pencil.
Note: This was a concept project and was not sponsored by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in any way.
The Challenge
Riders don’t feel comfortable riding public transportation for fear of contracting the virus. Although BART has taken steps to protect their riders, riders are unaware of what those steps are.
The Solution
By changing the narrative of what the riders are seeing we can instill confidence in them. We can see where riders will benefit the most by looking at the different rider touchpoints and focusing our efforts there.
Research & Discovery
What steps is BART already taking?
We started our research by speaking with a BART representative. We wanted to understand what BART was going to do to help riders feel safe. We learned that because of covid and the California wildfires, ridership went from 90% to 6% as of April 2020. To reach their goal of 15% ridership in the upcoming months BART released small marketing campaigns (radio and digital ads), as well as their 15 Step Plan outlining the ways that they are keeping riders safe. Their goal is to get riders to “ride just once” to see all the changes they have made.
Asking riders their opinions.
We wanted to understand how users felt about the plan that BART had in place. By releasing a survey we found out that riders didn’t even know BART had a plan. Not surprisingly, riders didn't feel safe riding the train.
Interviewing riders.
After reviewing our survey we interviewed different riders to learn more about their riding habits to see what steps they were taking to stay safe. Key takeaways:
Riders would rather take a lyft or uber because they are concerned with interacting with the general public.
Riders are concerned about riders that elect not to wear masks and social distance.
Bart has already had a reputation of not being the most sanitary train ride, riders don't believe that the trains are cleaned at all, much less for daily protection.
The problem with miscommunication.
BART had a plan but the public didn’t know about it. So we looked into other transit companies using comparative analysis to learn about what they are doing to keep riders safe and how BART compares. Based off our features comparison BART has most of the major elements needed. We did not believe that BART fell short in this way.
BART’s website.
We then decided to look into the rider touchpoints to see if there was any confusion for riders. We started by looking into the BART website. When looking at the homepage you can see a few links down at the bottom of the page, as well as an article outlining their Welcome Back Plan. Although these links are fairly self-explanatory, it still seems as though riders are having a difficult time seeing them. There is a possibility that users who do find this page might find it text-heavy and give up on reading it altogether because we naturally skim pages to look for bold information and breaks.
BART’s application.
Moving to the app, upon first glance you do see an advisory warning at the top of the page in red. Selecting this will create a dropdown with a link, that will take you to a page of information pertaining to COVID-19. But as you can see the 15 step plan link could potentially be lost due to the amount of text on the page and the small size of the type. When selecting the plan it takes you to the same web page from the website. Just like the website, the formatting of the page could be adjusted to be skimmable, allowing the user to quickly gather the information. When selecting the 15 step plan PDF through the app, it is impossible to zoom into the page to read the information, this could prohibit many people from being able to see it.
BART stations.
And finally looking at the BART stations. Upon first glance, it almost seems as if there isn't very much signage in the BART stations. Unfortunately, the signs that are in the stations are quite small and could be easily missed. With the size of the larger signs in the stations, the signs about how to keep yourself safe can be lost in the shuffle and overlooked. In addition, the signs don't retain BART branding and could also be overlooked due to that fact. BART's stations are actually quite large and have plenty of open wall space, there are plenty of opportunities to enlarge signage for riders. The most predominant signs are signs requiring facial coverings and social distancing, but regarding the rest of the 15 step plan, users are unaware.
Defining the Problem
Synthesizing the research.
After creating an affinity map we can see that the largest issues surrounding riding the BART are issues with safety, and finding information. Specifically feeling safe from contracting COVID-19, interacting with others who might be sick, overcrowding in the BART, and air ventilation. When it comes to finding information most users look to social media, other map applications, signs within the BART stations, or will try to find an employee which is sometimes hard to find due to understaffing. From this information and from our research into BART, we can see that BART is making efforts to keep the public safe, but the information that the public needs to see is hard to find, as seen from the small signs in the station, the lack of information on the app and the information on the website isn't easily discoverable.
Who is this targeted towards?
BART is looking to gain back their more frequent rider. The daily commuter.
The Daily Commuter
The daily commuter lives in the Easy Bay and works downtown. They take the train often on weekdays to and from work. They like the ease of taking the train because they don't have a car and if they took the bus they would have to wait in traffic. Due to shelter-in-place operations they are working from home and don't need to travel on the train at the moment. They know that when the pandemic eases up they will have to go back to work, but they are afraid for their health and are worried about getting sick when COVID-19 could kill them.
Behaviors & Attitudes:
Takes safety precautions such as wearing a mask and washing hands frequently.
Regularly uses social media.
Wants to stay healthy during COVID-19.
Frustrations:
Time consuming ticket purchases - they don't want to miss their train!
Unsanitary public surfaces - they aren't sure when the last time it was cleaned.
Lack of information about safety measures.
What problems does our rider face?
Riders aren't aware of the steps that BART is taking to keep them safe, which makes riders hesitant to return. By making that information more prominent, we can help riders feel more confident when returning to work.
Riders are worried that even if they take precautions, it wont be enough around so many other people. We need a way to allow riders plan their trips during times when there aren't so many other riders around.
Design & Solutions
What are some of the key features?
When looking at the issues that need to be solved, we explored many different options in a design studio. Some of the main takeaways that we decided to move forward with are.
Restructuring the transit application to include important information such as news and updates, crowding information, and COVID-19 information.
Adding physical applications to the train stations to remind riders on how to stay safe.
Reaching out to riders before they ride via newsletters and focusing digital ad campaigns on the topics riders are most fearful about.
Working with contactless payment options for riders to reduce the spread of germs.
The newsletter and digital campaign.
By sending out newsletters to users already registered using the BART app and those who have registered for alert newsletters, BART can start to change the narrative that users are seeing. They can send out targeted information about their 15 step plan and and changes around procedure. Users have previously stated that they get their information from alert emails and Twitter. So by utilizing those avenues BART should see an increase in engagement.
BART’s transit application changes.
Based on the research we understand that riders look at news on the go, such as using twitter to see if there are any alerts or information that they should know about. Riders also are concerned about their safety when riding BART, so we wanted to explore ways that we can instill confidence in riders when taking the train. So when sketching we focused on bringing those aspects to the app. We explored 4 main paths in our low fidelity prototype:
Adding news right onto the app to mitigate the need to outside sources such at Twitter.
Integrating crowding information into schedules to that users can make informed decisions when planning their trip.
Allowing users the option to pay by app, to avoid touching unclean surfaces.
Lasty, prefacing the changes with a light onboarding process and informing riders of the new rules for wearing masks via a pop-up.
Challenges, iterations, and the final look.
After conducting usability tests we made changes to the app in preparation for our high fidelity prototype. Some of the major changes are:
Removal of the onboarding screens because users felt like they could understand the changes without them.
Users felt the button style on the pop-up made the information feel too dismissive.
Within the news section users felt like delays should be station specific, and overall delays should be shown up front and prominent. In addition, users felt like the articles could be smaller and more easily digestible.
Within the stations page, users mentioned that the reason they use other apps like google maps is because they can set their home station and work stations, in addition having the map in the station section, and the trip planning section seemed redundant.
Before moving to our high fidelity prototype we thought it would be important to speak with a developer to see if there is anything that would not be possible with the assumptions we have made. According to the developer integrating the Clipper card for payment in the app would not be possible. It could be possible to link the website through the app or view current clipper card balances, but as of yet the way Clipper is now does not make it easy for 3rd party app integrations.
BART station changes.
We believe that some changes can also be applied to the BART stations themselves. Some of the main changes are:
Moving hand sanitizing stations to high traffic areas such as near entrances, or near Clipper card machines, and placing clear signage near them so that they can be seen from a distance.
Placing social distancing stickers on the ground to help riders stay 6ft apart.
Utilizing some of the empty wall space in the stations to place brightly colored signage that riders can easily see instead of placing small signs on doors that civilians cannot access.
How can we keep up the momentum?
Working with a transit company was really an amazing experience. It gave us a chance to make something in a physical space rather than just the digital space. Moving forward with this project I believe that there are some things that BART could really benefit from.
Working directly with Clipper to find a way to allow payment through the app, or creating their own payment method.
Creating a more consistent brand image to allow for easier recognition.
Making things fun like creating custom design hand straps using local artists can really make BART stand out from other companies.
All in all we expect that with these changes BART will see an increase in ridership when shelter-in-place operations relax.