Eaze
Making Commuting a More Comfortable Experience
Overview
Product Summary
Eaze is a transit app that prioritizes comfortability over speed.
Problem Statement
The transit app industry is saturated with a variety of options all attempting to solve the same problem, which is how to get from point A to point B the fastest. However, this leads to many users taking the same uncomfortable transit route as everyone else, while enduring several negative aspects of mass commuting. The result of which posed the following problem: how do we get a person from point A to point B comfortably?
Solution
The solution to this unique problem is to design an app that personalizes the commuting experience for the user by providing routes that actively avoid the negative aspects of taking transit, ultimately sacrificing speed for comfort.
Tools
Sketch, InVision, Abstract, Craft, Marvel App, POP by Marvel, Mockups
Role
UX Researcher, Prototype Designer, Usability Tester, Product Designer
Research
Industry Research
Prior to conducting user interviews to further investigate the identified problem, I first conducted research on the industry to better understand how other transit apps are attempting to solve this problem today, if at all.
To do this, I downloaded several transit apps and tested them myself each day on my way to and from work.
My findings led me to conclude that the majority of transit apps are not attempting to solve the problem of comfortability but rather they are attempting to solve a separate problem, which is: How do we get a person from point A to point B using their preferred mode of transportation?
Alternatively, Google Maps is partially attempting to solve the problem by allowing users to select between a few minor route preferences that could alleviate the negative aspects of commuting, such as fewest transfers. However, it does not go further than that to solve the problem of comfort for a transit user.
| App Name | How Does It Attempt To Solve The Problem of Comfortability When Commuting? |
|---|---|
| Apple Maps | Provides route options for various modes of transit. |
| Google Maps | Provides route options, which include preferred modes of transit (Bus, Train, Subway, Streetcar) in addition to other route preferences (Best Route, Fewest Transfers, Least Walking, Wheelchair Accessible). |
| Transit | Provides route options for various modes of transit, including bike share. |
| Rocketman | Provides route options for various modes of transit. |
| Citymapper | Provides route options for various modes of transit, including bike share. |
User Interviews
To successfully target the pain points of commuters, I interviewed 20 transit app users that travel using different types of transportation. To ensure accuracy, I developed a user interview script that asked open-ended questions about their commuting experience. Below are a sample of questions and answers I received during this process.
In summary, the data that I gather from the user interviews was not only how much a negative commuting experience affected a user but also that several users would prefer a longer trip if it ensured a better and more comfortable experience.
Question: Please describe to me the last trip you had when using a transit app.
Answer: This morning I used Transit when taking the streetcar to work, which takes about 30 minutes on a good day.
Question: How does the comfortability of your morning commute affect your day?
Answer: Having a negative experience when commuting to work really affects my day, I pretty much don’t get over it for a couple of hours, at least.
Question: Tell me about a frustrating experience that occurs often when commuting?
Answer: The other day I walked out to grab the streetcar on King and had to wait for 4 of them to go by until I could fit in one and when I finally did I was squished the entire time. I couldn’t even reach to take the phone out of my pocket to look at.
Persona
By combining both my problem statement with the data I gathered during my user interviews, I developed the following Persona.
User Flows
As I began my sketches, I identified two key user flows that I believe are important to prototype the Eaze app, which is how the app identifies the user’s comfort preferences during on-boarding and how those preferences impact their route options.
Paper Prototype
Before opening up my laptop to begin designing the app, I started with a paper prototype, which allowed me to make quick changes during the POP testing phase.
Testing
User Testing
Using the POP app by Marvel, I tested my paper prototype. Each completed user test led to incremental changes to the overall prototype. A few changes to note were:
Allowing users to skip the social media account setup section of the on-boarding process.
Restructuring and simplifying the comfort setting selections.
In addition to the user tests, I performed some A/B testing on some of the designs to gather feedback on which option improved the overall experience.
Prototype
Lo-Fi Prototype & User Testing #2
Using information gathered from my paper prototype user tests, I developed a Lo-Fi prototype, which I then used in another round of tests to see if there were any changes in the user experience.
During the second round of user tests, I found that people enjoyed the concept of a transit app that prioritizes comfort over speed. They were excited to see how they could incorporate biking as part of their transit route or how by taking a longer trip they could avoid a busy streetcar that was preventing them from standing comfortably with adequate space or sitting with enough space to comfortably read a book on their way to work.
Hi-Fi Prototype
Lastly, for this project, I created a very basic Hi-Fi Prototype to demonstrate how the prototype would look using my chosen colour palette.
6 Month Revisit
Since completing this project for BrainStation, I began a part-time Product Design internship at Index Exchange, in addition to my full-time role as coordinator. Having spent 6 months working closely with the Product Design team, Product Managers, and Engineers, I wanted to revisit this project and redesign the Eaze app using Sketch and implementing everything I have learned so far.
Finally, I used Craft to prototype my design and uploaded it to InVision. The final product of the redesign is linked below.