Brief Description

RushOwl is a startup that aims to bring the convenience of bus shuttle service to the masses by supplementing the buses with their technology. Users can book the buses, check the estimated time arrival (ETA) of these shuttle buses and see where they are in their journey.

More recently, they have launched a new product which aimed to gather more information about users to concierge a faster and more direct bus route, enabled by their new dynamic route matching technology. Basically, users can indicate interest in the app to get from their home to their workplace at a particular time. Once there are enough users that have indicated interest, the route will be formed and users could enjoy better convenience as well as save time in their daily commute.

This was where my role came into place. I was in-charge of understanding users’ transportation needs, redesigning their current UI, and adding the new feature into the app.

Expertise
UX Research, Design

Platforms
Mobile

Deliverables
User Research Report, UI Design, UI Design System

Prototyping Tool
Sketch

Research Plan

Stakeholder Meeting

Before starting the project, I met with the co-founders of RushOwl to understand more about their plan. They showed me a barebones wireframe done by one of their interns to explain roughly what they wished to achieve. Below were some of the requirements:

• Show private bus booking ticket on the main page of the app
• Differentiate the type of bus routes (fixed schedule, dynamic and crowd-sourced)
• Manage expectations — Late buses, crowdsourced routes, etc.
• Deadline: 2 weeks for user research and 2 weeks for the UI re-design.

User Research Plan

After learning about the application in general as well as what the founders wanted, I have a rough idea which parts were assumed and which part needed answers from the users directly. My research plan was roughly as follows:

1. Write user interview questions
2. Conduct user interviews (with 4 users)
3. Experience by using the current application
4. Observe current users at bus stops and users in the bus
5. Write an interview report
6. Present findings to the founders and ideate solutions together

User Interview

User Recruitment Criteria

To make sure I have the best results, users have to be screened. My main goal here was to get diverse opinions from my interviewees. Below were some of my requirements:

1. People who take public transport (with and without transits) to work
2. People who take private transport (taxi/grab/chauffeur or someone who drives to work)

User Flows

To make sure that I have covered all areas of the application, I outlined all the flows in the application.

1. Authentication — Register, Login, Forget Password
2. Account Settings — Change profile, see booking history, see subscription plans
3. Landing page — Bus tickets, suggested routes, search
4. Booking flow — Fixed, dynamic, crowdsourced routes and adhoc routes.

Key Research Questions

The questions below are the main high-level questions that need to be answered. Each question may be answered by asking 1 or more questions or by doing observations or both.

1. How do we ensure that users understand late bus arrivals are caused by traffic problems?
2. Do we need to educate the users on the different types of routes?
   (dynamic/fixed/crowdsourced) And how do we go about making it as seamless as possible?
3. How do we design the bus ticket on the app? What must be shown?
4. Do we need to design any end-of-trip flows?
5. What do users expect from a private shuttle bus app?
6. How will users make use of the adhoc bus service within one-north?
7. What will users expect from a geo-fenced shuttle bus app?

Key Observations to Make

1. Boarding flow: How passengers interact with the bus driver when boarding
2. Alighting flow: What do passengers do?
3. Current app flow: How do users use the current application?

Next Steps

With the plan in place, I went ahead to conduct the user interviews and observe users.