overview

San Francisco Muni, the city's main source of public transportation. Covering 70% of the city, SF Muni lacks a centralized way for visitors to easily incorporate their service of transportation into their trip. 

SF Travel Association wants to create a digital service that helps visitors use Muni more efficiently throughout the city.

Visitors need a mobile app that will help them explore the city's destinations and the most effective way to use Muni's different bus line, light rail and cable lines to get there. 

Research

We interviewed 17 people and got 60 people to take our survey to create user personas. We did this in order to create user flows to get an understanding of how a user would use this digital service. 

Interviews

We interviewed people at popular tourist locations such as Ferry Building and Union Square. We had conversations about their travel plans, how they got around the city and their current and past experience with public transit. We also talked to them about what drove them to make certain travel decisions and what they prioritized when they were stuck between taking public transit or using a private car service. 

Only 26% of the users from our survey used MUNI when traveling around the city.

We needed to create a digital service that could attract users and help them learn how to take Muni. We asked ourselves, how could we entice people to want to learn how to ride Muni? 

users didn't know how to take it or where it could take them.

We had to present the information in a clear way. There is so much information, it had be clear and concise in order to process & understand everything. Making it friendlier and enjoyable was important. We wanted users to feel excited and enthusiastic about riding Muni and exploring SF. 

despite the poor reputation, users were still open to taking MUNI to see more of SF. 

Users like having the options, Muni is more cost friendly than renting a car, or taking a taxi, especially in the  Bay Area. Muni provides an alternative for those who may have a smaller budget.

App or Web?

We knew we had to create a mobile app. Most users we talked to used their phones or a physical folding map when traveling. Its easier to user, especially when travelers are on the go.

Create a mobile app that would guide users throughout the city using Muni as a main means of transportation. There will be different type of tours to give users options and step-by-step instructions on how to ride Muni throughout the city of San Francisco. 

Wireframes

The team collaborated to create a series of wireframes for a specific user and afterwards we were able to do some usability testing to get some feedback. We originally designed the landing page to contain a scrolling wheel to help users navigate. If they swipe up from the landing page it would take them to all of the different routes available.

After the first iteration, each member was allowed to expand the project in their own direction. Using the feedback we received, I created a second iteration that made the experience more enjoyable.

• All the tours are now listed on one page but users can use filters to select the right trip they want to experience.

• More detailed tour and destination descriptions. 

• Clearer instructions before the user begins their trip.
• Detailed Route Overview; step-by-step directions, bus time arrivals, bus stop location.

• Simplified Step-by-Step directions with real time arrivals.
• Push Notifications to alert the user when and how to get off the bus.
• Confirmation that the user has reached their destination and has the ability to quickly get directions to the next location.

Prototype

Going back to the personas we had created, I chose to create a clickable prototype for a specific user.

In this case, the user is a young professional who is visiting San Francisco for the first time and wants to explore the cities dining scene. This user does not have the money to rent a car and has no prior experience with public transportation.

Moving forward, we would explore more features that would help users and provide them more useful information. Next steps include:

• Continue to do more usability testing and get more feedback.
• Incorporate audio tour feature to help the users who maybe visually impaired.
• Add a Tour Edit feature or Customize Tour feature.
• Add a rating and review feature.
• Add trending or highly rated filter or category.
• Expand to other Bay Area public transit system such as BART, SamTrans and San Francisco Bay Ferry.

Final Thoughts

Working with the team was a great experience, we were able to work together and deliver a project we all were proud to present. We used Trello & Google Docs to help us set weekly goals and share files with each other. This also helped us manage everyones roles and responsibilities, assuring that we never fell behind and stayed on task. What worked for us was having an open mindset, being respectful, participating, & communicating.