The latest travel app in NSW with COVID-19 safety reminders, alerts, single touch trip planning, easy Opal card top-ups, and more.
Project Overview
2 UX Designers including myself
Concept Project
Methods:
User Interviews, Surveys, Secondary Research, Personas
Competitive Analysis, Journey Mapping, Sketching
Prototyping, Usability Testing
People are afraid of contracting COVID on public transport.
Despite several companies offering flexible working options during the pandemic, many have to commute to work a few times a week.
People, however, feel unsafe travelling on buses, trains, and other modes of public transport in NSW. They often consider using their private vehicles and ride-share services instead.
As restrictions ease and more people begin travelling to work by car, there will be an increase in traffic congestion during peak hours.
It will cause severe delays, an increase in vehicle emissions, and higher economic costs. In this project, we wanted to explore solutions to keep people safe while using public transport in NSW.
The Opal 2
Opal 2 not only allows people to top up their cards, but it also offers the most relevant and up-to-date information on COVID safety.
Passengers can receive real-time notifications on service delays or changes and view carriage occupancy for upcoming services on their route. They can choose a trip that is right for them and stay in control of their journey.
With OPAL 2, passengers can efficiently plan and track journeys. It takes the hassle out of travelling during the pandemic and keeps you in control of your trip.
Research
How can we make public transport safer in NSW?
Gathering the facts through surveys and user interviews.
We were aware of the COVID safe measures adopted by TfNSW, but we wanted to find out about our users.
We wanted to gain a deeper understanding of their attitudes towards cleanliness, safety, and reliability of public transport.
Have COVID-related fears reduced the frequency of their use of public transport? What kind of precautionary measures were they taking? Based on their responses, what could we do to motivate them to utilize public transport more often?
Most people still commute by train a few times a week, but only half of them feel safe.
We surveyed 40 participants and discovered that 52% rated TfNSW 3 out of 5 for COVID safe practices. When we analysed the data collected through our user interviews and surveys, a few common themes emerged.
People said they felt anxious when they saw other passengers around them not wearing masks. They reported that there was not enough sufficient hand sanitizer available on the network.
They also felt hygiene and reliability had to be a top priority for public transport in the coming year. Lastly, passengers wanted the government to intervene and make certain COVID safe practices mandatory.
There should be better public awareness around COVID-safe practices.
To safely move large numbers of people, there has to be increased cleaning and better public awareness around COVID safe practices on public transport.
In an ideal world, the authorities would have to enforce certain precautionary measures to protect people and make safety a #1 priority.
The Opal app is under-utilised. People don’t leverage all its existing features.
Most research participants currently used Google Maps and Trip View to plan and track their journeys. A vast majority used the OPAL app to top up their Opal travel cards and manage their accounts.
To seek inspiration and find out why people liked Google Maps and Tripview to plan their journeys in NSW, we looked at these apps and compared them to the OPAL app.
We found that the OPAL app had most of the features available on Google Maps and Trip view but there was a great opportunity to use the existing OPAL app as a medium to communicate with passengers, send out COVID alerts, reminders, and guidelines.
There is no travel app in NSW that offers COVID-safe reminders and alerts
We sought inspiration from the 2 other travel apps that are most commonly used in NSW. We found that they had similar offerings, but none of them offered solid COVID-safe advice or alerts to keep people safe across all public transport networks.
Helping Anxious Commuters on TfNSW.
To empathise with the people who use public transport during the pandemic, we synthesised the data we received from our survey and interviews and created an archetype.
The Anxious Commuter:
Has to use public transport to commute
Always conscious of the cleanliness of his surroundings on public transport
Always wears a mask on public transport
Very fearful of contracting COVID from any high touch surface or enclosed space
Cares about social distancing
The Anxious Commuter
Tracing the commuter’s steps.
What are their points of confusion?
To find a solution to the problems people are facing on the public transport network, we had to uncover the challenges they encountered at various touchpoints. So, we created a journey map.
Ideation
There was more than one way to address the problem.
We understood that there was no silver bullet that could solve both the needs of the business and its users. There was more than one way to overcome the challenges for people using public transport -hygiene and reliability.
We wanted to begin with the solution that offered big gains without taking up too much time, money, or effort.
Use the existing Opal app to communicate with passengers.
Our research revealed that passengers didn’t feel confident or reassured enough to use public transport during the pandemic.
We wanted to find a way to communicate with passengers and inform them that their safety was a #1 priority for TfNSW. The easiest way to do this was to leverage a platform that already exists- The Opal Travel app.
Unlock the potential of the Opal app to tackle COVID-safety.
The redesigned Opal (Opal 2) would be the first to send COVID-safe reminders and notifications to passengers. It would also serve as the best platform for people to complete travel tasks like topping up Opal, planning and tracking a trip, viewing carriage occupancy, and receiving COVID reminders and alerts.
The aim was to put safety and reliability front-and-centre when thinking about the design.
Our initial designs weren’t enough.
As a team, we came up with a few design ideas and wireframed them with the hope of obtaining some early feedback. We wanted to assess different design patterns and ensure we were focusing on the right problems.
Don’t throw away the existing design but improve it.
We ran a usability test to evaluate our redesigns. We also wanted to know how our participants reacted to the different designs we showed them.
We found that participants are better able to offer rich feedback when they have several examples to compare.
Solution
Click to view my high-fidelity prototype
The Solution will open on a new page.
Next Steps
We want to explore how we could display cleaning schedules on all modes of public transport, so people know when their bus, train, or ferry was last cleaned. We would have liked to include this information on the Opal 2 App.
We also wanted to determine the feasibility of using advertisements to create better awareness around the importance of wearing masks and following safe practices on public transport.
We want to conduct more usability tests and discuss our ideas with the development team.
The Results
Anxiety reduced
By the end of the 2-week sprint, we found we were able to find out what was keeping people from using public transportation in NSW. The Opal App 2 kept people in control of their journeys.
They could easily view carriage occupancy when planning a trip and receive the latest COVID-safe alerts and reminders on the go.
If we had more time, we would have liked to explore the feasibility of other solutions.
What I took away from this project
The Business
TfNSW has already put several COVID safe measures in place to protect people during the pandemic. However, there ought to be more visible communications about what is already being done on issues like social distancing, cleaning, and additional bus/train services.
This will reassure people with safety concerns and remove barriers to using public transport during the pandemic.
The Users
People like using public transport in NSW but there has been a shift in attitude due to COVID.
Most people now feel safer using their private vehicles to travel. They would love to have an app like OPAL 2 that would send out COVID-safe reminders and alerts to all passengers.
The Team
Working as a team can be rewarding. It’s good practice to set aside time to work on the deliverables that need to be handed over to the business.