Enhancing the bus ticket booking experience in the redBus app for women — An evaluative UX case study to make travel safer
In this article, we will discover the small yet effective improvements that can make travel safe, especially for women.
Project Timeline : 3 weeks
Project : Self-initiated
My Role : Ideation, Plan of action, Research — Usability Testing, Prototyping & Visual Design.
Lightbulb moment : The problem statement came to me when we had to book a bus for my sister to return to her university after summer vacation. We had to apply a number of practical filters to ensure her safe travel, which prompted me to undertake this study.
Table of contents to scan the study —
∘ 🍄Overview
∘ 🍄 Let’s formulate a problem statement
∘ 🍄 The Process
∘ 🍄Step 1 — User flow
∘ 🍄 Step 2 — Framing hypothesis using heuristic and non-heuristic evaluation
∘ 🍄 Step 3 — Secondary Research
∘ 🍄 Step 4 — Primary Research ( using Usability Testing)
∘ 🍄 Step 5 — Validating Hypothesis
∘ 🍄 Step 6 —Brainstorming and Ideation
∘ 🍄 Step 7— Wireframing, Designing and Prototyping
∘ 🍄 Interact with the prototype here
∘ 🍄 Step 8— Learnings and Outcomes
Allow me to say — with a great number of users comes great responsibility (would Uncle Ben agree?).
Why did I say that? Well, redBus has been a leading platform for booking tickets for the past 17 years, and it is evident that the company continues to perform exceptionally well. Users consistently choose redBus in a market full of choices, which indicates that redBus must be doing something right to maintain such a strong customer base. After all, when users are happy, business thrives.
Last year, redBus released its India BusTrack report, which revealed the following trends —
I found it odd that, despite several studies noting a drastic increase in the number of female travelers, only 33% of bus passengers are women. This percentage is comparatively low, and here might be the reasons why —
Although the challenges are diverse, designers of digital platforms have an opportunity to address the issue mentioned by TOI by making apps easier and more intuitive to use.
RedBus released its latest app version on July 18th, while I was in the middle of this case study, adding new buses and features to its inventory. However, many older features and flows remain unchanged.
🍄Overview :
After attending Designare’s ( a design community) UX research workshop, I decided to complete an evaluative case study to understand the UX research processes better.
I chose redBus for my case study because I have observed it to be the first choice among commuters around me. This case study took me 3 weeks to complete, and now I am confident in using these research tools for my future projects.
🍄 Let’s formulate a problem statement :
Evaluate and identify opportunities to enhance the bus ticket booking flow of the RedBus app, with a focus on improving overall usability and enhancing the booking experience for women, in order to increase conversion rates.
👉🏻 What are the goals of this study?
1- To solve major usability issues and to streamline the booking process to make it faster and more intuitive.
2- Address the challenges faced by women with the current booking flow and implement design changes that lead to a increase in conversion rates.
👉🏻 What would be the outcome of solving this problem statement?
By achieving the above goals, we will identify the usability issues women face while using the app. These insights will guide the redesign and enhancement of the current bus ticket booking flow which will lead to increase in the user conversion rates.
👉🏻 How will the business be impacted?
An enhanced bus ticket booking flow will win the trust of female travelers, boosting their trust in the app and increasing the number of users. With a smoother experience, more happy customers will likely lead to higher conversion rates and a stronger presence in the market.
🍄 The Process :
🍄Step 1 — User flow :
Since we need to identify the usability issues with the current bus ticket booking flow, having all the app’s screens in one place will be helpful for evaluation.
The entire flow can be divided into the following steps —
onboarding → bus ticket booking → payment
🍄 Step 2 — Framing hypothesis using heuristic and non-heuristic evaluation
🧩 2.1 — Heuristic Evaluation :
To evaluate the efficiency of the booking flow, the 10 heuristic principles are checked against every screen. After which each screenshot is graded on a severity scale to highlight the impact of the identified issues.
This thorough analysis will ensure that the booking flow adheres to essential usability principles.🧩 2.2 — Self — Heuristic Evaluations :
Apart from heuristic evaluation, a self-heuristic evaluation is also done, which is based on observation, instinct and psychology. We interact with digital screens constantly so when things differ from usual, we notice.
⭐ 2.3 — Hypothesis :
Using the insights gained from the above evaluations, we can now formulate our hypothesis, this is an attempt to solve the identified problems ourselves first as is the nature of problem solving in the real world. We can later validate our hypotheses using the feedbacks we’ll get from research.
This helps in creating a structured, focused, and evidence-based approach to improve user experience.
🔔 So far, we have identified problems in the user flow using heuristic evaluations and then identified possible improvements for the app based on our hypotheses.
Let’s keep going -
🍄 Step 3 — Secondary Research
🧩 3.1 — Data analysis :
I reviewed various articles, news reports, and industry analyses to gather behavioral and statistical data that highlights the latest market trends among travelers/commuters and found some interesting insights that can be leveraged to elevate our business prospects.
- redBus’s India BlueTrack report shows the largest age group of bus passengers is 18–36 year old's.
- Gen Z travelers are more likely to choose eco-friendly and sustainable travel options. They highly value technology integration and seamless booking processes.
- When booking accommodations, safety and security are prioritized over cost ( 87% of Gen Z ).
- Transport as a Service platforms, which provide technology-driven, flexible, and secure commuting options, are becoming increasingly popular among women.
- Women prefer apps that offer specialized services tailored to their needs, such as female-only rides or carpooling options.
- When a marketing experience can remove the footwork that’s usually required on the customer’s part, it doesn’t feel like marketing. It feels like an easy interaction with a company that “gets” them. 72% of consumers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations.
🧩 3.2 — Competitive analysis :
Let’s study each step and various other parameters relevant to our goals, within our flow to understand how our competitors have tackled the same issues.
⭐ These are some helpful insights found from the above analysis-
- Paytm provides options to see women specific reviews, mentions if women prefer the selected bus, let’s users know you their partner will be.
- Paytm also shows % of women travelling which is helpful to make feel women safe.
- Paytm has very easy and intuitive form filling section.
- MakeMyTrip clearly shows if women prefer a particular bus.
🍄 Step 4 — Primary Research ( using Usability Testing)
If you want answers to app issues, best ask it’s users — no?
So, that’s what we do in this section.
Due to time constraints for the study, 1:1 call with only 4 users could be arranged. Since, our problem statement is aimed at women and redBus’s data shows 18–36 year old’s travel using buses the most, I divided the 4 participants into the following groups -
👥 Group 1 -
Age : 25–36 years old
Occupation : working professionals who travel
Users: already use redBus👥 Group 2 -
Age : 18–25 years old
Occupation : student who commute for studies
Users: new to redBusThe users were each assigned a set of tasks, after which they were asked questions about the booking flow.
While the participants performed these tasks, their reaction was observed and key insights noted down.
🔔 Below is observation table. It’s a lot of data, so attaching figjam files for anyone who would like to read more.
⭐ Key Insights from usability testing:
- Navigation Issues: Users found it difficult to navigate through the booking flow, with some screens being unintuitive and confusing.
- Security Concerns: Users expressed concerns about safety and security, indicating a need for features that make them feel safer.
- Scrolling : One of the most interesting information I found was that users did not like scrolling while booking.
- Pricing and Booking sections : were confusing. Users felt there was not enough information presented.
- Women booking filters and buttons : did not work as intended. A user was not switching it on during a task because ‘it will make no difference’ in her words.
🍄 Step 5 — Validating Hypothesis :
Remember we had come up with some hypothesis earlier? Let’s validate them using our research findings —
🍄 Step 6 —Brainstorming and Ideation
From the above research, we now know in which areas users face problems and have a rough idea of how can we solve them.
This phase is all about generating a wide range of ideas and solutions to address the problems identified during the earlier stages. We’ll use How Might We (HMW) statements to turn our insights into questions so that we have goals to find solutions for.
🧩 6.1 —How Might We Statements (HMW) :
🍄 Step 7— Wireframing, Designing and Prototyping :
From the step above we have the questions we must answer to achieve our goals but, designing ideas isn’t easy. We only have a limited space to represent all information after all.
Wireframing will help us decide where, which information will be placed. I referenced platforms such as swiggy and paytm for UI inspiration.
🧩 7.1 — Wireframing :
Since the design process is iterative, the wireframes underwent a number small changes during the high fidelity design process.
🧩 7.2 — High Fidelity Design and prototyping :
This was the ⭐ most fun and time consuming part of the entire project.⭐
The process started by identifying which elements will be used repeatedly throughout the screens and making components using them. Apart from components styles were also declared. I tried to keep the branding of the app consistent throughout the design.
Let’s compare the changes between the previous and new designs -
🍄 Interact with the prototype here :
My favorite is the toggle button on bus selection screen for women’s booking!
How can the protoype above be Improved?
I added little story-telling sections in the reviewing and booking screen because the page is often very loaded with information. It is not tested though — the effectiveness of it could be understood after conducting more tests.
🍄 Step 8— Learnings and Outcomes :
This being my very first UX research project, I learnt a bunch of things —
1- I understood how each of the research methods are used. I am now confident in applying these methods for my future projects.
2- Planning — this was my learning as well as shortcoming. I stumbled especially while in the design phase and realized how quickly simply nested components can become tricky. I did better after the seat selection screen.
3- Although I identified some other problems as well, an important learning has been — to not lose focus of the problem I started with.
4- I learnt how the first building blocks of UX i.e. it’s principles can help in identifying and solving problems.
5- No matter how perfect a product appears, there’s always room for improvement.
In case you want to take a detailed look at all of the tables, here are the my figjam files
🌟I am thankful to all the users who participated for the usability testing, Uday Kumar — who took out time from his busy schedule to give me much needed advice and to everyone who read my case study until the end. I hope it was a fun read for you.
Thank you so much! Feel free to interact with the prototype and give me feedbacks, each and every feedback is appreciated.
I’m also looking for internship and job opportunities, you can reach me at — minakshij9797@gmail.com , LinkedIn