UX research about Carris
This project had the duration of three months and began to be developed for a fictitious transport company whose aim was to improve transportation in Lisbon. Later, the company to be chosen was Carris, the largest Portuguese public transport company.
Their mission
Improve the way people and goods get around in the city, getting them from
A to B in the best way possible.
Their ultimate vision
People centered cities.
Mobility
We started by putting together in a cluster map all the keywords that occurred to us about mobility — positive and negative points, anything that worked well or poorly, among others.
From the cluster map, we collected a list of opportunities and challenges that we could face.
Opportunities:
- Efficiency increase;
- Quality increase;
- Costs decrease;
- New revenue opportunities;
- Better customer experience and reinforced loyalty;
- New business model: MaaS.
Challenges:
- Cultural and identity shift on public organizations;
- Impact on Human Resources;
- Exponential data growth;
- New channel to manage customer relationships;
- New competitors;
- Self-driving cars;
- Cyber security and privacy.
Sparks
In an increasing connected and digital world, what is public transportation doing to match higher and higher customers expectations in this field?
We wanted our solution to be shared, self driven, connected and electric. After defining these four parameters, we realized that Carris (Lisbon’s largest city bus company) fit perfectly.
Research objective
We needed to understand the end-to-end journey of how bus commuters travel and what prevents them from having a pleasing and useful experience and what could contribute to a positive outcome.
Interviews
We did one-on-one interviews in which, besides the interviewee, there were two other people present — the interviewer and the note-taker. A script was elaborated to serve as a support for the interviews and for the interviewer to guide himself. He followed the script during the interviews and managed the conversation so that it could take place in the best possible way. The note-taker, who was also always present in all the interviews, took quotes, was aware of unspoken topics, recorded the interviews and marked key time stamps.
During the interviews, we asked “What are the firsts words when you think about public transportation?” and we got the following keywords.
Trash, ugly station, stinks, no place to sit, f*ck, run away, traffic, messy, slip on the bus
To help us better understand certain aspects of the routines of the interviewees, we developed two tools that were exposed during the interviews. “A day in the life” was a table with a timeline in which the user filled in according to certain situations — how he felt, with whom he was, where he was, etc. The “preferences radar” was a scale of preferences of various services in two extreme situations — a day of enormous heat and no traffic, a day of rain with immense traffic.
User profiles
Emilee — 27 years
Good Carris experience:
- Bus track, simple and intuitive pass purchase system.
Bad Carris experience:
- Unpleasant, chaos, too much noise.
Patrik — 24 year
Good Carris experience:
- Opportunity to relax while waiting for the bus.
Bad Carris experience:
- Extended waiting times and buses with few places.
Annabel — 23 years
Good Carris experience:
- Easy pass validation, passes’ price, sustainable buses.
Bad Carris experience:
- Buses crowded, delays, difficult process of buying tickets.
Cloe — 29 years
Good Carris experience:
- Modern and comfortable buses, enough places, bicycle space, loading passes is intuitive.
Bad Carris experience:
- Bad drivers, lack of stops identifications.
In addition to the interviews, we conducted guerrilla and observation — two faster and more comprehensive processes in terms of genres, age groups and type of users.
Taking into account all the data collected up to this point, we started by arranging the information in groups to obtain several insights. After this process, we ended up with the following six insights:
#1 insight
Receiving updated and real-time information is an expectation from users. When this does not happen, it causes serious frustration.
“More technological evolution that enhance the experience”
“Information services don´t work”
#2 insight
People are receptive to new technologies but there are barriers, such as reliability.
“Autonomous vehicles would always need a human figure”
“More safety with autonomous cars”
#3 insight
The company’s range is limited by: financial investment; traffic planning; synchronization between partners.
“Carris has to synchronize technological innovation with other partners, which causes obstacles”
#4 insight
The main concern of the user is to have real-time information in order to ensure the trip. Only after do concerns come in such as experience and comfort.
“Lack of trust in information systems”
“Improve communication in case of disturbance”
#5 insight
The perception of time during travel is related to the experience on board, which is perceived as unpleasant.
“Unpleasant travel experience”
“Long and packed trips without any space to do other things”
#6 insight
The increasing number of passengers undermine the satisfaction of users: buses are more crowded; there are more delays, reflecting in general discomfort.
“Lack of conditions for passengers”
“New pass brought more users”
In the next phase, we grouped the insights and then created three HMW’s. After this phase was finished, we did a brainstorming session with another group. This session started with a quick introduction to our theme and the HMWs we had reached. In five-minute sessions, we sketched out all the ideas that came up on each HMW. After the three sessions, a vote has been taken for the most excellent ideas that would eventually support the solution.
#1 how might we
Customize the journey without increasing the number of buses in circulation?
#2 how might we
Communicate personalized information in real-time to users before their trip takes place, in order to facilitate their journey?
#3 how might we
Make travels more useful for Carris commuters by reducing their perception of time and decreasing the environmental footprint?
Follow-up
Our reflection on this project
- The process can be kind of chaotic and confusing and we need to trust it;
- Most difficult things: Coordinating everyone’s schedules; guerrilla research; HMW creation process; understanding the expectations about the project outcome;
- Solutions for pain points: Discussing problems, testing ideas and never giving up.
- Advice for the next project: Be less anxious about the final result and trust more on the process, now that we know it works.
Project carried out under the User Experience Design subject at Digital Experience Design Post-graduation course.
