Design Thinking — UrbanGo

Challenge 1 of prework as a UX / UI student at Ironhack Berlin

About Client

UrbanGo is a public transit and mapping startup based in Silicon Valley. Their goal is to solve the problems of urban mobility by offering the quickest and cheapest public and private transport routes to their users.

Problem

Although the current product of UrbanGo already solves some of the main problems of urban mobility, there is one pain point for many users: the different amount of public transport tickets the users have to purchase.

Design Thinking Methodology

Design Thinking is a protocol for solving complex problems and discovering new opportunities, by devising desirable solutions for clients/users.

The methodology uses 5 steps to create a solution:

Empathize:

The main objective in this first stage is to understand the user with empathy, to discover their need and what they expect from this application. For this, I conducted a survey with 5 different people, who use public transport, in order to understand what they need when traveling and when they buy a ticket.

Define:

After conducting all the interviews, I collected the data and compared the different responses in the interviews and then created points of view based on the needs of the users.

The ticket options — when the interviewed users do not know what type of ticket to buy, whether or not the ticket needs to be validated, users waste a lot of time on this decision. They often miss public transport and need to wait for the next one.

Ticket payment — users are often confused about how they can buy tickets, whether they accept cash, Paypal, debit or credit cards.

The language — when traveling to a country where the user does not know the language causes discomfort and anxiety when buying tickets.

Analyzing the users’ pain, I decided to look for solutions to make the payment part clearer so that users have greater security when making their purchase.

Ideate:

As a solution I suggest that the purchasing system be integrated with the application, so users will know which tickets they should buy, their tickets will be stored in the application and they will be able to use them whenever they want. Each ticket will have an individual bar code. In this way, problems with the choice of tickets and means of payment will be avoided.

Prototype:

Test:

In the test stage, I realized that users who use the routes were satisfied with the possibility of buying the ticket directly on the app and having the tickets on the app even when they are without wifi.

Conclusion

At the beginning of the challenge, I had difficulty planning and conducting the research, as many questions were not clarifying my doubts. I modified the approach so that the users’ needs became clearer. I realized that I spent a lot of time analyzing the research, I have to improve this skill. The Design Thinking methodology helped me to organize and prioritize the needs that users have.