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Evaluating and Updating the CityBus Transportation Experience

Many Purdue students are unsatisfied with the current CityBus service, the primary transportation throughout campus, while first time users are intimidated by the experience.

KeyLime Interactive assigned our student UX team to evaluate the situation and provide suggestions to improvement.


The Current Riding Journey.

We first wanted to familiarize ourselves with the current CityBus riding journey through the eyes of a Purdue Student.


We rode the Bus, joined other students for a bus ride, and gave some interviews.

Lack of information on signage

  • Confusing to new riders

  • No route maps

  • No feedback given to riders on bus eta.


Cramped shelters

  • Large Crowds at some stops

  • Shelters only fit 5-7 people.

  • Some bus stops had no shelters or amenities.

Over-reliance of the app

  • While live tracking features are appreciated by the students, they have to frequently check the app, with little alternative.


Troubles with LCD displays

  • From the back of some busses, the LCD display was blocked from view.

  • This grew an opportunity for audible signifiers.


Stop Request Cord

  • There was no instructions for the stop cord for new riders, relying on observational learning.

Bus Public Address System (PA)

  • Students found the driver PA to be too quiet, or difficult to understand, indicating a possible disconnect between systems.


Data collected via observational studies, contextual inquiries, user interviews, Apple App store, and the Purdue sub-Reddit.

Prioritizing What's Important.

We were gathering tons of information. After speaking to the designers and researchers at Keylime Interactive during our weekly meetings, we decided we needed to find ways to prioritize what's important.

We first wanted to talk to the CityBus CEO and gain his thoughts, but he was unfortunately busy for now. Spring break was approaching so we found some alternative methods to prioritization.

Guerrilla testing prioritization workshop results conducted outside of WALC at Purdue University. Marker colors represent bus rider experience.

Likert scale of the survey findings, ordered by most prevalent. Within the scale, the responses "Very frequent" was given a score of 3, "Somewhat frequent" a score of 2, and "Not frequent" a score of 1. Each identified painpoint's total score was calculated by summing the total points according to the likert scale. 166 total survey responders.

Results were compared by total tally marks written by participants at each color. A tally mark indicated that said participant found the specific painpoint to be most frustrating.

We did a quick priortization workshop and sent out a user survey based on our found painpoints, but then the C.E.O. was ready to talk.

Brian Smith - CEO CityBus

I think you guys should focus on the mobile app, rather than attempting to fix some of the physical limitations. We appreciate your research insights and will keep these concerns in mind. We have recently redesigned our bus stop signs and are just waiting for approval by the town. These new signs are "panaramic" meaning they can be viewed from every angle.


Tripspark developes our app for us. It would be best for you guys to come up with a list of notable changes, and I can send it to them.

After our conversation with Brian, we were happy that our research insights agreed with his suggestions - focusing on improving the app experience.


Time was running out until our deliverables were due, so we focused on one new feature that aims to reduce the user from having to frequently check the app looking to identify bus route info.

Introducing a widget for the CityBus app.

Purdue students want to become less reliant on checking the app so often. This is called a microsession - a quick session with minimal interaction to complete the user goal. With these new widgets riders can display their favorite route, using a widget on their home or lock screen mobile device.

Current Microsessions.

Locates app on mobile device.

Opens app.

Scans favorited bus route.

Some users have longer microsessions but checking the bus location via the map, while others check the map when they are nearing their destination on the bus. Due to this, when the user clicks on the widget, it will bring them straight to the map view of the route.

Locates app on mobile device.

Opens app.

Swipes menu to find map.

Selects map.

Views map.

Setting up the Widget.

Conclusion.

In a perfect environment with more time, we would have liked to A/B test the other designs for the widget. But due to time constraints we relied on current app user intuition for the widget design and design system. While designing the widget, we also overhauled the entire app but, due to time constraints, it was left unfinished. This taught me the importance of balancing expectations in a short term (3.5 month) projects where you are new to a design space.

I also wish we could have evaluated the success of our widget in a real-world bodystorming like test. It would have been interesting to of gathered two groups, one with the widget, and one without. Then identify how often they opened the app and what was the goal of opening the app was. Perhaps if we did not spend time attempting to overhaul the app as well, we could have conducted more testing and designed further.