QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND PROTOTYPE OF DIGITAL WAYFINDING KIOSK
PROJECT SUMMARY
This project was based around the design of a digital kiosk (requested by the client). We also had freedom to suggest complementary communication touchpoints.
RESPONSIBILITIES
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User Research
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Experience Design
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Storyboarding
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Prototyping and testing
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Information Architecture
TIMELINE
2-week sprint
TEAM
Our team consisted of 3x UX Designers and 1 Service Designer.
OVERVIEW
Sydney Metro is a train service operating in Sydney, Australia. They wanted to develop a digital wayfinding kiosk to notify travellers of disruptions and to assist commuters when connecting to other modes of transport.
They were concerned about poor rates of customer satisfaction due to metro service disruptions.
Sydney Metro needed to find suitable methods to inform customers of disruptions and provide information that would assist them in reaching their destination.
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Dissatisfied customers
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Unavoidable disruptions
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Customers were uninformed
PROCESS
To discover how commuters obtained disruption information.
RESEARCH GOAL :
USER RESEARCH
We interviewed commuters in person to get first-hand accounts of problems they had faced when using the Metro. This taught us about the types of the problems they faced on their commute, as well as how they consumed information.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
From our user research we concluded three main findings:
HOW MIGHT WE?
We met with our client to define HMW’s which helped us to understand the problems from the client’s perspective.
A general theme emerged, centring around crowding and the priority to efficiently move people between transport hubs.
This helped to more clearly define problem scenarios where the client had been struggling to move/direct customers efficiently.
PERSONA DEVELOPMENT
A previous service design team had already developed some basic personas that divided people into two broad categories; “Planners” and “Unplanners” but they were not detailed enough to give a picture of people’s needs and goals.
Based on the people we’d met on the Metro I built these into more detailed artefacts which could be referred to throughout the rest of the process.
DESKTOP RESEARCH
We undertook desktop research to learn about features and patterns utilised in digital transport kiosks from around the world.
This would help us to validate our own ideas and borrow from well-designed, tried and tested platforms in other more established markets.
CTAs: Digital kiosks need to include a call to action (So users do not confuse the kiosk for a digital advertisement screen).
Disruption information needs to be seen from a distance without the need to interact
Wayfinding is becoming more interactive with the inclusion of new tech such as beacon and AR technology.
KIOSK RESEARCH
We visited a Kiosk manufacturer to interact with kiosks in person to get a physical understanding of ergonomic considerations as well as learning about common architecture and patterns used in wayfinding.
RESULTS:
We opted for vertical screen orientation to aid in distance readability.
A button height adjustment feature could also improve accessibility for people of differing heights.
Hub-and-spoke design would allow the user to focus on one task at a time.
IDEATION
Using a blue-sky approach, our team generated a large quantity of ideas from pictures and post-its which we then pared down to the most viable.
Ideas included:
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Push notifications alerting of disruptions ahead of the commute
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Kiosk, PAs, signage, and projectors to assist with wayfinding in and around station areas, and connecting to other forms of transport
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Making use of existing and emerging infrastructure
We focused on the kiosk as our main concept as the client had requested.
We presented the other concepts as additional long-term, “blue-sky” ideas that could be used in conjunction with the kiosk at busy station times.
Ideas were sorted using a prioritisation matrix to work out the most viable and feasible solutions that would have the most likelihood of being implemented in the near future.
STORYBOARDING
I communicated likely scenarios faced by commuters through lo-fi storyboards to show how problems could be overcome with the kiosk and to shine a light on other existing infrastructure that was under-utilised by Sydney Metro.
The storyboards would help us to focus on the touch points and overall experience that the personas would likely encounter toward their interaction with the kiosk.
Fred never plans his trips. He arrives at Macquarie Park station and his train to Chatswood hasn't arrived for 5 minutes. He can't see anyone on the platform and there aren’t any announcements on the twitter feed. He has had his headphones in but he can hear some sort of announcement has come through the loudspeaker. Fred goes to the kiosk and sees the delay alerts on the screen.
Cho is on her way home to Rouse Hill. She is in a wheelchair and needs the lifts. When she exits the train, she stops at the kiosk when she notices the alert:
"Due to high winds, the lifts on platform 1 at Rouse Hill station are not in service. Please make yourself known to staff at this station for assistance".
She presses the help button and someone answers. The person comes down and helps Cho up the escalator.
USER FLOWS
Based on our research, I was able to propose user flows aiming to assist commuters to find information with the minimal amount of input required from the customer.
Scenario: Fred wants to know why the train hasn’t arrived and he wants to know what he can do to get to his destination.
Scenario: Cho is in a wheelchair. The lifts are broken and she needs assistance to move up onto the concourse.
LO-FI WIREFRAMES
Lo-fi paper prototypes were based on the user flow architecture. They were tested with real Metro customers to validate if people were able to find what they were looking for quickly and easily.
Normal state
The Home screen was cluttered and functions of buttons were unclear. The destination search was inefficient.
Disruption State
The customer was required to touch the screen to obtain the specific information related to the disruption.
Customers indicated that they wanted to know about the specific nature of disruptions so we made this information available from the home screen without the need to interact.
INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
PROTOTYPING & VALIDATION
We built and tested an interactive figma prototype with a dozen commuters to validate our revised architecture.
We incorporated usability improvements based on feedback obtained from earlier versions:
TESTING & FEEDBACK
Customers indicated that they wanted to know about the specific nature of disruptions so we made this information available from the home screen without the need to interact.
We found that button symbols were confusing, so added words to assist in navigation which also enabled us to increase the viewable area allocated for maps and timetables.
(Click images to enlarge)
RESULTS
Minimising the amount of clicks required to get to important, time- sensitive information was particularly important in this digital product.
What worked
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Simple text copy on buttons and simple navigation
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Borrowing from tried-and-tested design patterns
What needed improvement
We noted that our disruption alert screen was informative but was text heavy. This could be improved with better copywriting.
