App Prototype designed with Graciella Schmisseur & Sarah McGinnis

Project created for VIST 110 section 907, Design Innovation with Professor Dr. Jimin Rhim

Problem and Design Overview

Every day, students navigate bus routes using unreliable and confusing methods that discourage user interaction, especially when it comes to off campus locations. While there are options designed to help, they are not intuitive to users and are not well known among the target audience. Consequently, students may struggle to arrive at important events on time, spend hundreds of dollars on parking passes or by-the-hour parking, or rely on more reliable–though longer or more inconvenient–means such walking or getting a ride.

Our goal was to redesign the A&M bus app Maroon Rides to provide a more user friendly and effective experience for A&M’s students using the buses. This app would feature improved aspects such as searchable destinations, notifications for routes, and personalized route-planning.

Design Process and Key Insights

Through a series of surveys and interviews with various A&M students we determined that the majority of students were not satisfied with the available options, and those that considered themselves satisfied still felt that there were areas that needed improvement. Interviewing a small group provided additional information about the original app’s effectiveness. This revealed that a majority of participants were dissatisfied with the app’s performance, and even people that stated they were “satisfied” with the app expressed that it could still be improved.

Here we decided on exactly what we wanted to accomplish with our design. Specifically, we wanted to be able to search locations, save routes, see relevant information on the buses and their current locations such as if a bus was running late or if it was on time, and include a map that would demonstrate the user’s location as well as the final destination.

Iterative Design Process and Key Insights

We then started with a series of prototypes. Our first prototype, the Paper Prototype, allowed users to theoretically navigate a website through a series of post it notes. Here we narrowed down what we needed to focus on in the design before committing to choices that would end up unnecessary or inefficient. The second prototype, the Digital prototype, was our first attempt to create a functional app. Here we added options such as the Favorite Routes, Quick Pick, and Notifications, as well as saw the sketchy paper prototype come to life on a screen. We later used the Digital Prototype as a base for our final high fidelity prototype.

Through more user tests, one round involving other students in the Design Innovation class being given the prototype and attempting to use it and another round with students through A vs B testing who were given our prototype and the app that we were attempting to improve (Maroon Rides), we found some issues with our design that needed to be addressed. For instance, that there were not sufficient instructions on how to use the app for new users. We also found that the map size was not optimal for users and that users wanted more customizability when it came to adding notifications and saving routes. These needs were met by adding a help page, allowing the user to enlarge the map, and granting more customizability to the “Quick Pick” options.

Final Design

Finally, we have the complete prototype. While there were limitations to what we were able to create due to the time constraints of the class and the software we had access to, we feel that our design was more effective in providing the users with all the relevant information. The UI of our design is easier to understand for new users with relevant help pages. and clearer labels for features. We also implemented new features such as notifications and searching, providing users with more options for customization.