Design Thinking: Travel light! An UrbanGo case.

Jolanda Dekker
Nov 4 · 6 min read

In need for a worriless travel life?! Imagine; no more queuing in line, no more lost tickets, never pay too much or feeling stupid. Design Thinking makes this possible; by being better informed, easily find what you’re looking for & choosing right. All in one go. Let’s see how this works….

Case: UrbanGo, a public transit and mapping startup based in Silicon Valley with a mission to solve the problems of urban mobility by offering the quickest & cheapest transport routes to their users. Their current solution being a mobile application, provides different multimodal routes with the estimated time and costs. It however doesn’t solve the pain of having to purchase different public transport tickets by different channels.

“I hate queuing & carrying tickets around, why can’t I just arrange everything from my lazy chair, all in one go.”

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process which seeks to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems, and create innovative solutions to prototype and test (by Interaction Design Foundation). A human-centred approach that not only helps you to find the right problem, but also to fix the problem right.

By researching your user’s needs (Empathise), clearly state their needs & problems, thereby framing the problem correctly (Define), and then go wild on finding all kind of ideas, and challenge assumptions (Ideate). What really makes it work is by getting back & forth showing your solutions (Prototype) to your users, having them test it. This will give you even more insight about the problem, and ensures you’re also fixing it right!

Back to the case of UrbanGo, where the challenge is to find a feature for their app that solves the pain of having to purchase different public transport tickets by different channels. Let’s start with the Empathise stage.

Empathise: “Empathy is our ability to see the world through other people’s eyes, to see what they see, feel what they feel, and experience things as they do” (by Interaction Design). So understanding the needs of those you’re designing for. Or as I like to describe it; finding the need, behind their needs.

For this case I interviewed various people all using public transport, especially in Holland, but also sometimes abroad. They vary in age from 30–85, use public transport incidentally up to daily commute & travel solo or together. All familiair with internet & app possibilities, but greatly varying in their ability to use them or finding the information they need.
They like to use public transport when it saves them on parking costs, when it gets them quick & easy from A to B, to have some time for themselves, and for environmental reasons. The Dutch OV system, having one card for most public transport, has it perks but fits their needs relatively well.

Let’s see if UrbanGo can profit from their experience & needs. When analysing & synthesising my users’ experiences, pains & wishes, I noticed they can be grouped in 3 categories: the need to be properly informed, convenience & a sense of safety. So no queuing in line, no risk of losing tickets, paying your best price, reuse what you have done before, no worries about enough money in your travel account, and safe payment options. And of course ease of use.

Summarising their pains & needs into a clear and simple problem statement, I would say: MY JOURNEY; MY TICKET! No worries, no hassle, just GO!

Ideate: Time to generating a lot of ideas. Go wild, go wide or even go into reverse. At this point in the process it is not about finding the best solution but creating as many as possible. Be creative, be curious!

Solutions for the UrbanGo case varied from a having somebody else standing in line for you, an app especially for older people, one card for all, free transport for everybody, or even a chip implant so checking in or out is no longer needed. Not to solve all public transport problems at once, we decided to focus on ideas that make the info around the ticket prices as simple as possible, be able to buy ticket in one go without the need of physical tickets and reduce the amount of payment transactions you have to do.

”Design Thinking is not only about finding the right problem, but also to fix the problem right.”

Experimentation: At this stage, it’s about testing your ideas using prototyping. Prototypes are tangible products that do not have to be very detailed or actually working, but enough to display a specific feature to see if your ideas will work by having your users testing it. They help you to fail quickly and cheaply, so less time and money is invested in an idea that turns out to be a bad one.

“They slow us down to speed us up. By taking the time to prototype our ideas, we avoid costly mistakes such as becoming too complex too early and sticking with a weak idea for too long.” – Tim Brown

My Objectives for the App are 1. Personalised; so MY best price, MY Discount, MY options, MY payment method, MY Info (based upon profile, history & preferences), 2. All in ONE go; find MY journey & pay for it all in one location, retrieve MY journeys & tickets, NO fuss, and 3. Safety; safe & familiair payment transaction, safe personal data (encrypted), possibility NOT to be track&traced (by payment upfront).

So an accessible & personalised app, where I can easily find the info I need, knowing I pay the best price and have all my tickets available or even better no need for tickets at all.

Prototype: “Find MY journey, MY price & My info (pay upfront)”
Prototype addition (activated automatic payment): “Just pay as you go”

Conclusion: The aim of this UrbanGo Design Thinking process was to find a solution for the most shared needs of the users & when possible also address some of their more specific ones. To find a way to travel light. So no worries about how to get where, about forgetting your tickets or carry them all around, knowing you have the best price, no info overload, no more more queuing up and especially ease of mind because it’s all in there.

So an all in one, one for all app! Or as Antoine De Saint-Exupéry quoted: “He who would travel happily, must travel light.”

Take aways: Design Thinking also make my design journey easier as it always turns out to be 1+1 makes 3. By interviewing, working together, and having an open mind, I’m always amazed how much better solutions work out than when trying to make the world a more user friendly space ‘just by yourself’.
Being a System/Total Concept thinker myself, it can also be very frustrating just to focus on small steps instead of how everything, all stages & touch points off a service, interact together. But it helps me to make solutions more simple & practical. And also not to get too attached at my ideas.

“Searching is for something you know is there, finding something requires a non-expecting open mind”. (Omdenken/Utrecht)”

Jolanda Dekker

Written by

Aspiring SD/UX Designer. Passion for creating services people love to use by ensuring they’re easy, smart & fun. Next stop: Ironhack UX/UI Design Bootcamp.

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