Introduction
At the end of Milestone 1, we had narrowed down our focus to three ideas:
- A bus notification smartwatch app that potentially targets the needs of visually-impaired bus riders (would tell you when you were at a bus stop, how long till the next bus arrived, when your bus stop would be the next stop, etc.).
- A smart bag that keeps tracks of items in your bags, reminds you when you leave one behind, suggests items based on your calendar, and acts as an anti-theft device.
- An augmented reality app developed for Google Glass or smartphones which would show “digital graffiti”, potentially targeting tourists as an ideal audience. Local residents or other tourists could leave digital messages that would only be viewable or hearable at the location via the app.
These are three very different ideas, and even within each idea, the possible scope was very wide. As Milestone 2 begins, we have decided to focus on idea number 1 to conduct our formative study on bus commuters, since it is a more feasible idea that combines wearable technology, location-awareness and physical environment augmentation in a way that could be valuable to users. From the formative study, we hope to probe bus commuters’ information needs and “pain points” in regards to their bus riding experience, from which we seek to find out more design opportunities.
Study design
The goal of this study is to better understand the information needs of general bus riders while taking into consideration accessibility issues. As part of this formative study, we decided to conduct a diary study, survey and interviews.
Diary Study Participants
We recruited participants by sending out an email to umsi.all.open and by asking classmates and professors at the University of Michigan School of Information. Our sample size, thus, is heavily tilted to the student population and not representative of the general bus riding population, but it was the best we could do within our timeframe and without having a budget to compensate participants.
We recruited six participants for the diary study, five of them are general bus riders in Ann Arbor and one of them is a visually impaired bus rider to help us provide solutions that could be accessible for different types of riders. One participant is a professor, four are graduate students and one is a retired resident in Ann Arbor who does not use a smartphone. While we would have preferred to have a less academic sample, we do think the participants we recruited help us consider multiple types of bus riders, including those without access to smartphone technology and those with visual impairments.
To complement the deeper insights we would acquire from conducting a diary study, we created a short survey that would capture a broader, though shallower, data sample. The survey is described in greater detail below.
Diary Study
We created a Google Form which participants were asked to fill out each time they rode the bus, either while on the bus or shortly thereafter. The diary study lasted four days, from Wednesday, February 18 through midnight on Saturday, February 21. The participant without a smartphone wrote down her entries on a spreadsheet we made for her. Each form entry was time-stamped and most questions were multiple choice or checkboxes so that it could be completed easily in under two minutes. In the form, we asked questions regarding:
- information needed before leaving to catch a bus
- location where a person caught the bus (bus stop or transit center)
- number of minutes waiting, and timeliness of bus arrival
- types of information sources checked before leaving for the bus and while at the bus stop, and number of times all sources were checked
- whether the form was completed during the bus ride or afterwards
- the weather during the bus ride
- anything remarkable that happened during the bus trip to help the participant recall that particular trip.
A PDF version of the Google Form can be found here:
Anonymous participant responses can be found in a spreadsheet here:
Interview
After the diary study, we conducted exit interviews with our diary study participants in order to learn more about their experiences. We asked each participant the same set of questions and added participant-specific questions based on any unique data we discovered in their diary study submissions. A PDF version of our interview script can be found here:
Survey
The survey asked roughly the same questions as the diary study, though we had less of an expectation that the survey respondents would fill out the survey while riding the bus. The survey was distributed through the umsi.all.open listserv, social networking sites, and on Craigslist. We received 62 responses in total. A spreadsheet of the survey results can be found here:
Findings
We all individually read notes from the interviews and analyzed the results from the survey. We then had a meeting where we discussed and finalized our major findings. From our analysis and discussion of the formative studies we conducted, we generated the following list of findings:
- Cold weather increased need for a “push” experience since riders do not want to take off their gloves in the cold weather.
- People check schedules and live updates frequently for up-to-date information at the bus stop and before leaving to catch a bus.
- There is a strong need for a better user experience for people wanting to know when their bus will arrive: a “push” experience instead of a “pull” experience, both at the stop and before leaving their departure points (home, workplace, etc.). Even people using their smartphone to entertain themselves at the bus stop are averse to looking up information about the bus arrival time, because their previous experiences doing so have not been great.
- There is a desire for information to be broadcast or displayed at the bus stop, especially when a bus is running very late.
- There is some desire for two-way or social communication: bus riders at the bus stop being able to communicate to the bus driver and to other riders about their presence at the bus stop and about the bus running late.
- Even something as simple as better directional signage at the bus stop could satisfy some information needs for new riders of the bus system.
- Existing third-party apps are not satisfactory or heavily-used.
- Some riders prefer using the booklets over the app and the website
On the basis of these findings, we began to generate ideas for how we could better serve the information needs of bus riders.
Ideation and Selection
Our findings gave us a better idea of the information needs of bus riders and the specific conditions under which the currently existing infrastructure and information resources are not producing a good experience. People want more up-to-information about bus arrival times and they want to receive that information in an easier way than presently possible through the mobile website. Cold weather also plays a factor in how people access information about the bus’s arrival. People with visual impairments want a more precise awareness of where the bus is currently located and a better experience at the bus stop – sometimes the bus will just drive past them because they are not standing close enough to the bus stop. In a group brainstorming session, we came up with various ideas that could serve these needs. Later we combined them, made tradeoffs and picked out three main ideas to flesh out via storyboards. Our preliminary ideas (in addition to our original iBeacon and wearable devices) include:
- allowing users to use the bus information, e.g. to contact bus drivers or administrators, or to share it with other riders at other stops
- providing information at bus stops directly in addition to pushing it to smart devices, for people who don’t have smart devices or who are waiting in bad weather conditions
- not only providing bus information at a stop, but also providing more interactions at the bus stop to help pass the time (example from CHI 2013: Paleo)
- allowing riders to put their destinations into a smart device at the bus stop, and the device tells riders the routes they should take and the directions of the routes, etc.
- registering a bus when it arrives at a bus stop to provide more accurate bus status
- riders hitting a button at the bus stop to alert riders down the road the bus is late
- a flashing light at the bus stop to indicate delay
- a screen at the bus stop to indicate where the bus is and whether the bus is to be late and how long it’s going to be late
- a bus map with LED lights representing stops, lights out meaning passed stops of a coming bus, lights on meaning stops down the road and the flashing light meaning the next stop of the bus
Of the various criteria by which we could make judgments on potential design solutions, the criteria we prioritized were the following: usefulness, appropriateness, legibility/usability, plausibility, and accessibility.
Below is a brief description of each criteria as described in the class syllabus:
- Usefulness: Our system aims to make bus travel easier for the commuters by keeping them better informed about the exact arrival times of the buses. We aim to provide this information in a new and easier way for users to gain maximum benefit from the system. We are currently trying to figure out ways to incorporate the different kind of people who take the bus.
- Appropriateness: We have conducted studies and interviews to gain a rough understanding of how our audience goes about bus travel and the information that they need before their begin their journey. We will try to ensure that our system meets everyone’s norms, practices, goals and desires.
- Legibility: The ideas that we have brainstormed have all been created keeping usability in mind. We have kept the user as the most important unit of this system and ensured that the product has been built around the target audiences’ needs.
- Plausibility: Most of the infrastructure and technology that we have incorporated in our ideas already exist and we will use them to create our product. We envision that a few changes will have to be made in the bus stop and bus station environment for our product to work. But we are currently ideating and will have a better idea once the prototyping phase begins.
Accessibility was a criteria that we added that was not originally listed as one of the design criteria for the course. We think making technology accessible is in general a good idea, and we think that it is specially applicable to the issue of public transportation. And the AAATA’s information sources are particularly inaccessible, both on the website and in the printed out transit guide (one diary study participant with visual impairments noted that the easiest way for her to access the schedule was to either call the bus system or have a friend look at the schedule for her).
Tradeoffs
One major tradeoff we had to negotiate involved the extent of technology we used and the degree to which that decision then determined the inclusivity of the project. The more we relied on smartphones and smartwatches and a proficient level of use of such devices, the more the project catered to a student population and less to the general ridership. Although smartphone penetration in the United States has reached 75% as of December 2014 according to this ComScore Report , not everyone with a smartphone would be able or willing to download an app specifically for the AAATA. But for those who do, there could potentially be great benefits, especially for purposes of greater accessibility.
Another tradeoff revolved around the issue of how much of the current infrastructure we wanted to leverage and how much new infrastructure could be added while still maintaining a high level of plausibility. Bluetooth beacons could add new functionality and incur less of a battery drain than relying on GPS on a smartphone. Likewise, electronic displays at bus stops would be expensive to install and difficult to maintain. Preventing damage and theft would also pose a problem.
We narrowed down our ideas from the list above to three ideas which we feel offer possible solutions to the problems and issues identified in our formative study. Each one strikes a different balance in terms of the criteria it satisfies and the tradeoffs that result from them.
Scenarios & Storyboards
- Phil is going to take the Route 2 bus to downtown, Ann Arbor. It’s his second time taking the bus from home to downtown and he is still not very familiar with the path. But the iBeacon at the bus stop and on the bus helps him out. When he is approaching the bus stop, the iBeacon recognizes him and pushes the bus information to an app on his smartphone. He opens it and sees an estimation of the bus arrival time, a map showing where the bus is and a button that allows him to send an alert to the bus driver telling her he’s waiting at this stop. When the bus is approaching this stop, the bus driver hears a beep, and knows someone is waiting here. Phil gets on the bus and sets his destination on his smartphone. He has turned on the notice service that his smartphone will receive information from the iBeacon embedded on the bus about each stop when the bus is approaching it. And when he is arriving at his destination, his smartphone tells him to prepare to get off the bus. So he pulls the signal and gets off the bus. (Figure 1)
Figure 1. Location awareness via iBeacon and Smartphone
2. It’s polar vortex cold today. Adam arrives at the Route 2 bus stop. Although he can use the mobile app on his smartphone to look up bus arrival time, he really hates it that he has to take off his gloves and pull out his smartphone and open the app and look up information. But suddenly he finds the LED notification system on the wall, which clearly indicates which stop the bus is arriving at and which direction the bus is going, with the estimated bus arrival time at this stop showing at the bottom. Now Adam doesn’t have to check his phone for the bus information. He can hold a coffee to warm his hands while waiting for the bus. (Figure 2)
Figure 2. LED notification system
3. Although John is visually impaired, he finds it convenient for him to take a bus with the help of a smart notification system at the stop. When he approaches the smart system of Route 5, the system with a function of checking proximity will sense him and speak out loud the bus arrival time. At the back of the system, he will find a button, pressing which he will hear more specific information of the bus, including a map reader telling where the bus is. (Figure 3)
Figure 3. Proximity Notification System
Refined scope and concepts
For this milestone the targeted users of our design was refined. At first, we were aiming to study the population with visual impairments. However due to challenges we have faced during the recruitment process, we redefined the scope to address the general bus riders while taking into consideration accessibility problems. It was quite difficult to recruit 5 users who ride the bus with visual impairment within the time frame of this project. So we recruited 6 users to perform the diary study and one participant was visually impaired. The reason was that we wanted to make sure that the needs we were addressing with our design would be accessible by sharing our thoughts and ideas and discussing them with the visually impaired user.
The environment which we are designing for is bus riding both in and across Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti using AAATA. The experience of riding the bus is divided into smaller experiences starting from planning the trip and going through waiting for the bus, riding the bus and ending with getting off to the correct bus stop. For our design we have narrowed down the scope and we are focusing on the pre-riding phase and the bus stop experience. Through our studies we were trying to explore how we could enhance the riding and waiting experience to make it more efficient.
Dividing the riding experience into smaller chunks presented great opportunities for improvement. One of the problems that kept occurring during our studies was that the bus passed by the people waiting by the bus stop without notifying either the riders or the bus driver. One opportunity we could leverage is the use of novel tracking technologies to enhance the notification system in addition to what users already have in hand, for example, their smart phones which are capable of tracking and communicating with other devices. Our approach is to build off the already available infrastructure and leverage existing technologies.
Conclusion
At the end of the ideation and brainstorming phase of milestone 2, we have clearly narrowed down our scope and target population. We have finalized the environment which we plan to augment. We will be primarily focusing on bus riders in the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area who travel by the AAATA buses. Our major aim at the moment is to augment/improve the bus stops and riders’ pre-bus arrival experience. We still have multiple solutions for this current problem that the form of our user interface is still open to a variety of possibilities. One uncertain aspect of our project is the technology that we will be using. Right now, our ideas have incorporated different kinds of technologies. In the upcoming meetings, with further ideation, brainstorming and observations we hope to narrow down on one concrete solution and begin our prototyping phase.