Ironhack’s Prework challenge: designing a payment feature
Background information
Traveling by public transport
When you plan a trip by public transportation, and you go a bit further than just a block away from you own home, you will often have to deal with different operators of public transport. Probably you will have to hop on the train, as well as the bus, metro, tram or even a ferry. Because you want your trip to go smoothly, the use of an application that plans your journey, will be of great help. For this exercise in Design Thinking the mobile app Citymapper is a good example of an app which could do just that for you. But at this point there is also an issue that might arise: when traveling with several public transport operators you might have to deal with different ticketing systems. Getting different tickets takes time and can sometimes even be unclear.
So the main goal of this exercise is to find a solution for this problem when using an app like Citymapper.
To tackle this issue I interviewed 5 people to figure out what they find most problematic when traveling by public transport with different operators. After discussing these results and defining the main problem, I will share my solutions to these problems and show the prototype of the design with these new features. Followed by some of the key elements which I have learned throughout this process.
Interview results
How to get there?
To gain knowledge and insight in the difficulties people might come across whilst traveling with the public transport, I asked 5 respondents about their experiences, and foremost just listened to them and their solutions. Because that is actually what they quickly did: come up with great ideas of improving traveling. Even some out of the box ones!
But first, let’s start with the problems the respondents encountered. Especially when being abroad, it can be unclear what kind of ticket you need for which kind of transport, how you need to check in or out and if there’s something like traveling through different zones. When you are not familiar with the situation of the public transport in a different country, finding out how all of this works can take up quite a lot of time and give some frustrations. Most of all when you need to go to different ticket desks or dispensers and keep track of when you need to use which ticket. Or if you have charged the card enough to cover all the zones you will be passing. To make matters worse, sometimes ticket dispensers do not offer clear descriptions in English which will result in even more unhappy travellers.
To address these issues, I asked the respondents how a travel app could help them. And what they would expect the app to do to make traveling by public transport easier. Different solutions came up, from being able to buy all the tickets in one app to an automatic tracker which charges the precise costs after the trip. The most important conclusion was that the app should be clear, in providing options for routes, and what you need when and where. These solutions will be further addressed in the paragraph Solutions, because first, the main problem needs to be defined.
Defining the main problem
Let’s make it clear
All the interviewees had one consistent problem they wanted to be solved and that was unclarity. If an app could take away the hassle of finding out which ticket you need when and where, it would prove to be a useful app. Combined with unclarity comes practicality, or easiness. You could consider this to be a result of a clear app: if the user experience is clear, the app is also easy to use. But in this case it is more a sub-problem of the main problem that has to be solved: the app should be clear in providing options, routes, tickets and information, and the easiness should be derived from the kind of ticketing system the public transport demands. In the end the main issues would mostly be solved if only one kind of ticket would suffice traveling the public transport. Since we are discussing a fictive situation in this exercise, and we do not need to worry about security or privacy concerns, I will combine the main problem with the sub problem, and come up with a solution that will target the unclarity of different public transport providers and the practicality of one system.
Solutions
One system to rule them all!
Seeing that the main problem would be solved by having one ticket provider in the public transport, the travel application needs to present a way of paying once for the whole itinerary whilst covering the different services. This can be accomplished in different ways. With this new app (or feature) you can either pay in advance for your whole trip, or upload credit on your app, so that you do not have to pay ahead for your trip and costs are covered with your credit. An additional option will be that through the app you will be charged afterwards for your trip directly from your linked bank account.
Once you have chosen your preferred payment option (you can choose a standard option, but will be able to make changes in these options), the application will work as follows. First, when planning a trip, the app will give a clear route and offer different options based on price and time. After you have chosen the itinerary that suits you best, you will use the app for checking in at the public transport. To do that you will use your personal QR code which is connected to the app and can be applied to the different providers.
When activated, the app will notify you based on your location where you need to go, eg. which platform and which train.
If by chance you would change your itinerary and additional costs are needed to cover the trip and your payment option is not charging afterwards, the app will notify you about this and charge you afterwards, or use your credit, or it will block and asks you to pay directly. Whatever option you have chosen for these cases. If it is the other way around and you would save costs, the difference will be added to your credit or transferred back to your bank account.
If it is acquired that you make a reservation for certain transport, eg. a long train trip, you will be able to book a seat with your app and receive a confirmation in your app and email, but still use your QR code for checking in and out.
You will always be able to see previous trips you have made in your app and choose favorite itineraries and stations and saved locations. The app will also provide additional information on stations, including taxis, shops, food arrangements and lockers.
In the end, the app needs to make your trip to go as smoothly as possible and worries about having the right ticket with the right amount at the right moment should be non-existent.
Prototype
Show it
The prototype will show how the description of this feature will appear in the app.
Learnings
Let it go
Of course this problem that had to be solved was an exercise for a fictive situation, so I had to let go of my initial thoughts and comparisons to the actual Dutch public transport. Where we already have one card that takes us almost everywhere, so we do not have the problem of getting different tickets for different providers. At first I found it a bit more difficult than I expected to get the real-life Dutch situation out of my head. But the interviews actually helped with letting go and broadening my mind, because the participants came up with some great ideas. Of which some were applicable to traveling abroad, but also some improvements to traveling in the Netherlands.
Another thing I have learned while doing this exercise, is that you can keep going on with improving and never stop thinking of extra steps that are needed to make it perfect. So it is a good lesson that at some point you have to differentiate between essential steps and the ones that are nice to have. In order not to make this exercise a never ending journey.
