Bay Transit is a non-profit public transportation service that believes every citizen should be assured accessible and safe transportation to the local destination of their choice without regard for disability, age, or economic status. My challenge? Build a responsive website to help them achieve that mission.

This project is for an assignment I completed for Designlab’s UX Academy and is not apart of Bay Transit.

The Problem

A non-profit transportation service that offers equal opportunity rides for people of differing abilities but has a website this is not accessible to these people groups.

my Hypothesis

More people of differing abilities would be able to use Bay Transit's transportation services if they had a responsive website to book their travel.

The Process

Competitive Research

To begin testing my hypothesis, I wanted to compare how other Virginia public transportation and paratransit companies were getting their riders to book travel. I did this by completing a SWOT analysis of Bay Transit’s direct competitors to kick off the empathize phase.

MOTIVATIONS

• 4 out of 5 participants use public transportation to get to a social gathering

• 4 out of 5 participants use public transportation to do food/other shopping

• 3 out of 5 participants use public transportation to get to work

NEEDS

• All participants need to have reliable transportation

• All participants need to have affordable transportation

• All participants need to use their mobile device to check arrival times.

GRIEVANCES

• All participants experienced public transportation not arriving in the scheduled window

• 4 out of 5 participants said public transportation was often uncomfortable

• 2 out of 5 participants said public transportation was unsafe

MOTIVATIONS

• 6 out of 10 participants use public transportation out of convenience

• 3 out of 10 participants use public transportation because they did not have a car

• 2 out of 10 participants use public transportation because it is more affordable

NEEDS

• 8 out of 10 participants check arrival times & locations on their mobile device

• 2 out of 10 participants check arrival times & locations by looking at signs

GRIEVANCES

• 5 out of 10 participants said public transportation was sometimes on time

• 4 out of 10 participants said public transportation was on time

• 1 out of 10 participants said public transportation was never on time

Summary of Empathize Phase

I empathize with each participant when they say they have all experienced a delayed pick up or arrival time when they have used public transportation. And this tells me that there is a need for clearer communication between rider and driver. An accessible website is a good step towards accomplishing that goal.

Persona

As I moved into the define phase, I decided to build a persona based on my interview Katie, a 30 year-old with Cerebral Palsy. This way, as I begin designing an accessible website, “Nicki” would be at the fore front of my decision making.

MOTIVATIONS

• The paratransit gets her to work and back to her apartment twice a week

• She loves how affordable it is and likes John, the driver

• Sometimes she will talk to John or whoever else is on the bus but mostly she listens to music during the ride

NEEDS

• To schedule her rides on her mobile device each Monday afternoon

• The bus to arrive within the schedule time so that she is not late to work or has to find a different ride last minute

• To feel independent by finding her own way to work and back

GRIEVANCES

• When someone on the bus makes them late or is talking too loud

• She has a different driver than Carl

• There are no phone charging outlets on the paratransit bus

Empathy Map

To further my ability to empathize and define what this desktop site needs to include, I did an empathy map for my persona, Nicki. This exercise helps me get into the mind of the user and design for THEM not for what I think is best.

UI design

In the design phase, I gave BayTransit an updated brand identity (new logo is on the right) to compliment the friendly, welcoming feel the site design would strive to have.

Prototype

After designing all of the high fidelity wireframes, I brought the entire experience to life through Figma’s prototyping tool. This prototype was tested by 4 users during the testing phase.

Usability Testing

I was able to get this prototype in front of 4 people to click through and test if they could successfully book a ride and donate without any assistance from me. I was pleased to have my friend Katie, with Cerebral Palsy, be one of those usability testers.

Affinity Map

The user testing results were compiled into this affinity map to help prioritize changes and evaluate their value. You will see an iteration I made based off of Participant 3’s feedback regarding the donate page.

CHALLENGES

• Low applicability; Though I made frequent attempts to reach out to Bay Transit, I never connected with their team. Therefore missing the opportunity to interview real users of their services and address current pitfalls they have with their website.

• Low user testing success; I was able to have Katie, with Cerebral Palsy, test my prototype. However she was not able to complete the flow without some assistance from her mom, sitting next to her during the test.

LEARNINGS

• Wording a survey; This was the first survey I distributed in my product design career and learned the terminology to use when phrasing the gender identity question that is common in a survey.

• Accessibility; A high contrast ratio, a translate page option, and simple, bookish wording were all things I learned to implement in this design to make it accessible for a wider range of users.