Introduction
Valley Metro is the regional public transportation system serving the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas in Arizona. It encompasses a comprehensive network of buses and Light-rail services, providing convenient and sustainable transportation options for Arizona residents and visitors.
The Challenge
How can we redesign the Valley Metro Kiosk system to streamline the interface and enhance user experience, reducing wait times and confusion for residents seeking public transit services?
The issues ?
We adopted a comprehensive strategy to glean insights from users, employing surveys, conducting three usability tests, and making four observations. The survey questions covered both demographic information and inquiries about the kiosk's usability. Additionally, we performed a competitive analysis and heuristic evaluation on the kiosk. These combined methods provided valuable insights into user interactions with the kiosk, pinpointing challenges, and gathering suggestions to enhance the overall user experience.
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Users face cognitive difficulties due to the absence of error recovery and complex navigation
Dive deep into issues
The Ideate phase started with brainstorming how to approach the redesign of the kiosk. From the User research, we understood that the users face accessibility issue with software and hardware. Users also faced issues with instructions and labels.
The hardware structure encompassed elements ranging from the placement of buttons to the arrangement of slots and labeling. Initially, the kiosk operated solely through buttons to control the screen. However, in our pursuit of enhancing user experience, we devised a strategy: introducing a redesigned touchscreen interface to streamline the ticketing process, while retaining the familiar buttons as an alternative. Our goal is to achieve a design that is intuitive and straightforward for all users interacting with the kiosk.
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Inconsistencies in the interface design across screens or functions lead to user confusion and hinder a seamless experience.
Designs
Users encountered cognitive difficulties due to lack of error recovery and complex navigation. They found it overwhelming to enter all the information correctly at once, as there was no back button to edit previously entered details. To address this issue, we redesigned the screen with a more intuitive navigational flow.
These improvements aimed to enhance user understanding, streamline decision-making, and improve overall navigation on the kiosk interface.
Impacts
Task Completion Time: Reduced the average task completion time by 40%, ensuring quicker and more efficient user interactions.
Accessibility Metrics: Achieved an impressive 86% accessibility rating, ensuring a user-friendly experience for everyone, including those with visual impairments. This was accomplished by incorporating features like Braille labels on keypads.
Visual Hierarchy Effectiveness: Attained a user agreement rate of 88%, indicating the success of the visual hierarchy system in guiding users through information.
