UX Case Study
Wemoove: The Future of Lagos Public Transit — Feature Prioritization (Part 2 of 3)
An attempt at redesigning the Lagos public transit experience.
Note: This is the second part of three articles detailing my design process in an attempt in creating a better experience for an average Lagos Commuter. Part two is focused on defining what features will help user’s achieve their goals and prioritizing the most important.
Part 1 (recommended) can be found in the link below.
People like Femi, Cynthia, and Usman are yearning for a better and more reliable transit service and Wemoove is here to change that. Wemoove is supposed to bring the activities of taking transit in Lagos a step closer to the future.
How is this going to happen?
How will the buses operate?
What features will the app have?
Features
As we know, features are easy to add but every feature should have its purpose and should ultimately support the user’s goal. What goals do Femi, Cynthia, and Usman have and how will these features help to accomplish them?
Goal — Femi wants to know how long he’d be waiting for a bus.
Feature — Real-time Departure & Arrivals
Femi will be able to find a bus to get him to his destination, real-time track the bus he is waiting for so as to be informed about when it’s going to arrive at his nearest stop.
Feature — Bus Schedules
Femi will be able to check the list of Wemoove bus routes and scheduled times for his route. There will be different bus times for different routes so if he misses a bus, he knows the next bus will be at his nearest stop in 10 or 15 minutes as they have already been scheduled to move like that.
Goal — Usman wants access to real-time data like traffic information, Femi wants to know why his bus is late.
Feature — Real-time Traffic Information/Delay Notification
Usman and Femi will have access to information that can hinder their trips in any way. Having knowledge of traffic situations or whatever lies ahead will help them plan better.
Goal — Cynthia wants to be able to get directions to places.
Feature — Get Directions
Cynthia will have access to the information that will help her get to a new place or somewhere she is not familiar with. She will even get alerted when she reaches her destination.
Goal — Usman would like to know how much it will cost him to go to a place and back.
Feature — Fare Estimate & Cost Comparing
Knowing how much it will cost to reach a particular destination goes a long way in helping Usman decide and plan. This also helps him decide to pay more and take a longer route that is traffic-free, or pay less and take a shorter route with traffic. He should have the flexibility to choose based on circumstances.
Goal — Usman would like to know the best route options to reach his destination.
Feature — Different Route Options (Alternative Routes)
Usman will be provided with alternative route options to a particular destination especially if there is a delay due to traffic. He can compare routes and know which one is best for him at that particular time. Most times, he passes the same route every day even if it’s not efficient enough because he doesn’t know the options he has.
Goal — Usman wants a simple and more comfortable way to get around and less hectic than driving.
Feature — Plan Trips In Advance
Usman will be able to plan his movements way ahead. It could be for the next working day or the whole week. Instead of driving or even searching for a bus when he wants to go somewhere, he is offered the chance to do that before time. For example, if he leaves for work at 7:00 a.m. daily, he can set a notification to always be alerted when a bus is 20 minutes away from him at a particular time of the day. All he has to do is just be at the bus stop when his bus is supposed to arrive.
Features from Frustrations
Taking a look at their frustrations and thinking of ways to help them brought about some other features.
Frustration — Cynthia thinks it’s a waste of time for buses to keep stopping at every bus stop to either drop a passenger or pick one.
Feature — Decide the kind of trip — Direct trip or Multiple stops.
Cynthia will have control over the kind of ride she takes. “Ojuelegba” to “Allen” has more than 10 bus stops in between them. If Cynthia is in a hurry to work, this will be a problem. This feature will give her the chance to decide and choose between a bus going directly to her destination without stopping or a bus that would make multiple stops.
Frustration — Femi has to be vigilant always because he’s not sure the driver won’t be reckless.
Driver Ratings and Reports
After talking to a few bus drivers and conductors, I realized that they are very nonchalant about their attitude. It is totally wrong to be high or drunk while driving people. It is also very wrong to want to fill up your fuel tank and not turn off the ignition while people are in it. A lot of lives are being endangered daily because of this.
Even though the Wemoove bus will have better and well-trained drivers, the best thing would be for people on the bus to comment on how the driver is behaving as this will help provide a better bus service.
Everyone deserves a nice and safe ride and it doesn’t matter whether the person is in public transit or Uber.
Frustration — Usman is having a bad encounter with bus conductors because of “change”.
Feature — Fares & Payment
This feature is an easy, quicker, and more convenient way for Usman to get bus tickets or pay for trips and worry less about change. He can either purchase tickets with his credit/debit cards for daily or weekly trips or get a bus smart card and top it up regularly. By just tapping it on the machine when he boards or showing his QR code from the app, fares will automatically be deducted on every trip.
This will also help him track his spending, so even if a situation of not having enough money arises, transportation for that week or month has been taken care of.
Other Features
These other features came into the picture in order to enhance the user experience of whoever is using Wemoove.
Offline Information
The current state of network connection in the country cannot always be relied upon. Default bus schedules, a list of bus stops, and route maps will be available without any 3G connection available.
Event Updates
In a city as complex as Lagos, there are often special events that could have an impact or affect people’s journey. It would be nice to know ahead about what is going on. It could be that the president is coming to town, a protest happening in a certain place, or construction on a major road. This will help people plan their journey around that.
Bus Comments
It would also be nice to know more about a bus or what is happening in it before you enter. Nobody wants to enter a bus coming from mile 12 smelling of rotten tomatoes and stockfish. This will help to provide a better bus experience for everyone.
Voice Prompts
In Lagos, most people don’t always want to hold their phones in a crowded area or on the road as they prefer to have their phones in their pockets or bags while using their earpieces. Having voice prompts would make things easier as people can just listen to the directions to where they are going. Also, there might be a restriction in the ability to use or see the screen properly at a particular moment maybe because someone is holding something or whatever the reason is, they could just listen instead.
Audio Bus Notifications
It would be good for the buses to announce when they get to a certain bus stop so people who are distracted, sleeping, or don’t have an idea of where they are going will not miss their stops.
Prioritize
I know adding features continuously will bring unnecessary complexity, so I sorted the features by category (Essentials and Nice-To-Have) which will help determine the MVP.
Essentials
- Real-time Departure & Arrivals
- Real-time Traffic Information / Delay Notification
- Get Directions
- Fare Estimate & Cost Comparing
- Different Route Options (Alternative Routes)
- Offline Information
- Bus Schedules
- Plan Trip In Advance
- Payment
- Event Update
Nice-To-Have
- Decide the kind of trip — Direct trip or Multiple stops.
- Voice Prompts/Inputs
- Bus Comments
- Driver Rating
- Audio Bus Notifications
Identifying the 20% functionality people will spend 80% of their time on and focus on it.
Concerns
Last Mile
A bus cannot get everywhere in Lagos. Sometimes, the pickup or drop-off bus stop could be far from an individual’s house, workplace, or any other place.
Mixed Transportation Options
The smartest and fastest way to get to a place in Lagos sometimes requires other modes of transport like an “Okada” or “Keke Napep”.
Behavioral Change
Using the Wemoove app will require some behavioral change. Making people change their default habits might need some motivation and persuasion.
In my final article in this series, I will be analyzing the user flow, explaining how I designed the app screens, why I made my design decisions, and how I performed usability testing.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it, If you did, please hit the ♥ button below, and share it.
**Update — 2019
After battling with the long-anticipated Part 3 of this series for a very long time, I have decided this project is no longer a priority for me at this moment.
Are you happy with your Lagos public transit experience? If you have feedback or suggestions on this project, I’ll be happy to hear your thoughts. Feel free to get in touch, my twitter handle is @teefarie
