Research
I. Literature Research
We kicked off our research process by conducting some literature research to familiarize ourselves with the context of the future of mobility. We learned that mobility was expected to increasingly shift from being product-centered to service-centered.
Which got us thinking… Why do people transport if everything can be transported to us?
After brainstorming, we determined that seamless transportation can take away the human aspect of mobility, which we believe is important. We started focusing on the problem space: How can we foster communication amongst newcomers through public transportation? We focused on newcomers because newcomers are those that are in most need of a community and would likely try to communicate with others.
II. Survey
We then conducted an online survey to understand what people’s current public transportation habits were. We carefully developed survey questions that would help us discover people’s unbiased opinions.
One example of a graph from our survey results
Insights
- Pros: Cheap, convenient, quiet, environmental friendly
- Cons: Unpredictable / unreliable, wait times, crowded, cleanliness, temperature, seat availability
- Interaction with people: Usually people don’t talk to others, thanking the bus driver, boredom, if someone else interacts first
- Desirable qualities: Wifi connectivity, speed, consistency, safety, comfort, reliability, convenience
III. In-Person Interviews
Interviewing people about their experiences with public transportation
We conducted some in-person interviews to get more in-depth insights into people’s experiences on public transportation, especially concerning newcomers and community.
Some interesting insights that we found were that people really did not want to speak or interact with others on public transit, people felt a sense of community in shared (negative) experiences, and people find it easier to talk to people at bus stops than on a bus.
We realized that it would be difficult for us to implement a societal or intrinsic change to make people want to talk to each other. We began to wonder if it would be easier to get people to interact rather than have conversations with each other.
IV. Generative Research Tactics
We began targeting how people felt connected to others in their community and how that could be brought to a bus stop through an in-context participatory poster that asked questions and people were able to fill it out as they liked.
On the left: An in-context participatory poster that was filled in by participants; On the right: An in-context participatory poster at a Pittsburgh bus stop
Takeaways:
Current bus stops offered little compared to what people want. Something interesting that we found was that people enjoyed interacting with the poster or enjoyed interacting with other responses on the poster, leading us to the idea of how we can build community through unspoken and anonymous interactions.
V. Mapping Unspoken Interactions
We tried to map out spoken interactions with people along the bus experience to understand points where we could facilitate interactions. However, we couldn’t really get anywhere, so we mapped unspoken interactions that people may have while waiting at the bus stop and on the bus.
Above: Map of spoken interactions; Below: Map of unspoken interactions
We found that… There were a lot of neutral interactions between people but there were some potential positive interaction, such as acknowledging familiar strangers.
We were really intrigued by this idea and thus our new problem space was: How can we foster community and communication through unspoken interactions on public transportation?
More Generative Research Tactics
With this new problem statement in mind, we decided to have more face-to-face conversations with people to better understand how people viewed verbal and nonverbal communication with strangers. We did this by using the generative research method of conducting futures exercises, which was inspired by a workshop we did as a class with Stuart Candy. The purpose of the exercise was for participants to imagine a hypothetical object from the future, generated by a creative prompt.
VI. More Generative Research Tactics
On the left: Futures exercises in progress; On the right: Drawing conclusions from futures exercises
Insights
- When people thought of their ideal future, they assumed that there were no privacy issues and that strangers were friendly.
- When people thought of nonverbal communication, they first thought about social media.
- People want to know some background information about a stranger, their emotions, or thoughts, before verbally interacting with them.
VII. User Journey Maps
Above: Map of bus commuter's user journey; Below: Visual representation of bus commuter's user journey
We also mapped out the As-Is scenario of a user’s journey throughout their commuting experience based on the categories: what does a commuter think, say, feel, interact with, and do during their commute?
We also created a more visual representation of the current user journey experience to better visualize where we could target points along a commuter’s journey to facilitate interactions.
This helped us to better understanding points of interaction that we would try to target in our solution. The point that we believed to have the most potential to target in order to facilitate this sense of community was at the bus stop.
Pivoting
Pivoting away from anonymous interactions.
After getting feedback from Bridgestone, we realized that our idea of transforming mobility using anonymous interactions was on a more societal and intangible level. We were taking a more digital route for our solution, whereas Bridgestone is a product-centered, materials company. Working within the constraints of Bridgestone’s technology pushed us to realize we were on a path that would be difficult to use tangible solutions. We realized that in order to create a solution that Bridgestone would find use in as a materials company, we would have to pivot away from anonymous interactions.
From there, we decided on understanding:
How can we create a friendly, safe transportation hub and design an experience that allows for someone to seamlessly commute using public transportation?
Ideation
I. Concept Generation
After we agreed to pivot our opportunity space to create a physical transition hub, we took time individually to rapidly generate ideas as possible directions to go in.
Concept generation sketches
We then started roughly sketching and designing the features that we decided on implementing in our transition hub, including the various new seating types and how they would work.
Rough sketches of our solution
We then started to create higher fidelity mockups of the different hub features for Bridgestone to view and better understand our concept.
Higher fidelity mockups of our solution
II. Video Script & Storyboards
We then drew out some storyboards for how users would interact with our hub to better understand how our solution would work.
Storyboards for how users would interact with our solution
To think about the video sketch to show our solution to Bridgestone, I wrote a script and we sketched out video storyboards based off of the script to visualize our story.
Video storyboard sketches
Final Design
Our Solution: Entr'acte
The new transition hub for multi-modal transit that allows for a more seamless commute.
Goal: To create a better public transportation experience through better organization, greater comfort, increased protection against the elements, and a friendlier environment through facilitating possible interactions amongst strangers.
Entr'acte Video Sketch
View the final solution in this video sketch below:
Final Design
People don’t like the lack of organization of loading onto a bus. Entr’acte creates better organization through displaying transit time tables which also shows when the next incoming bus will be arriving and signals when passengers of that particular bus should move to the exit portion of the hub through a light cue. This allows for a more seamless transfer onto the bus and can facilitate conversations and interactions amongst passengers knowing that they are traveling to the same or nearby places.
In-app Experience Wireframes
People don’t like the lack of organization of loading onto a bus. They also don't like when they realize that a bus is too full for them to take once the bus arrives.
Because of this, I decided to also create an in-app experience that allows for a more seamless transfer from a bus stop onto a bus. This in-app experience allows for users to view when buses will be approaching their bus stop and also gives additional information about how full the current bus is through implementing Bridgestone sensors under the bus seats. With this knowledge, users can determine which bus they want to board. The app also gives information about delays on the road so users can plan their trip better.
Here I sketched out some wireframes for the app screens.
Low fidelity wireframe sketches of app screens
In-app Experience High Fidelity Prototypes
I used Framer to create the final prototypes.
Reflection
During this project, our group was focusing on transforming mobility using anonymous interactions on a more societal and intangible level for a lot of our process. We were taking a primarily digital route for our solution, whereas we realized later on that our stakeholders wanted a more physical, product-centered, materials solution. We learned that in order to cater to our stakeholders’ needs, we would need to focus more on Bridgestone’s values and goals. If we were to do this project again, we would start off by aligning ourselves much better with Bridgestone’s values and goals much earlier on in the process as to not spend so much time researching anonymous reactions, which weren’t as relevant to Bridgestone’s goals.
The next steps are to see how Entr’acte can be applicable to other modes of transportation including trains, airports, ride-sharing services, etc.
