Ironhack’s Prework
Citymapper is a public transit app and mapping service which displays transport options, usually with live timing, between any two locations in a supported city. Their goal is to solve the problems of urban mobility by offering the quickest and cheapest public and private transport routes to their users.
The problem
Although the current product of Citymapper already solves some of the main problems of the urban mobility, there is one pain point for many users: the different amount of public transport tickets the users have to purchase.
Public transport tickets come in paper or plastic cards. Very often buying different public transport tickets is necessary to go from point A to B. And the process of buying these tickets can be very annoying (queues, vending machines that don’t work, etc.).
Finally, things like pricing or purchasing the correct ticket can become a real pain when you are abroad.
The task
Task: To Create a feature for the Citymapper app that solves the pain of having to purchase different public transport tickets by different channels.
Empathize & Research
What problem am I solving? Purchase different public transport tickets and travel details by different channels all in one place.
Who is my audience? People traveling with public transport in need to find the quickest route and getting an easy solution to pay.
Who is my client’s competiton? BVG, Moovit, Deutsche Bahn, Google Maps
What’s the tone/feeling? Travellers can quickly feel overwhelmed by the booking and ticket options, payment methods and conditions and combined rail services. The payment method should be as simple as possible and it should be possible to buy a ticket for the entire route, regardless of how often you have to change and how many different transport providers are connected for the respective route. I interviewed 5 people that a frequent travelers.
My questions:
- Ho to you buy travel tickets, online or do you prefer to buy it at the vending machine?
- What services and applications (e.g. Google Maps) do you use to find out about the route and distance and the ticket prices?
- What applications should be connected to the app? Do you need your ticket as a paper?
- Which services, options and information are important to you when buying tickets? For example, the payment options or the automatic location detection.
- What features would make traveling as pleasant as possible for you? E.g. push-up messages in case of train delays. How to claim delay repay.
- E.g. seat reservation, cancellation options or crediting of already purchased tickets for future journeys and transparency of costs.
- What standards and security criteria should the app meet?
- Would you prefer a purchase with or without registration?
- Should there be a history for all routes travelled or, for example, only for routes that are travelled often?
- What additional options would you like to have? E.g. low fares, the possibility to use a discount code or e.g. collect Payback points.
Define
User needs and current problems:
- For me, it is most important to have the booked ticket easily available, to be able to show it comfortably with just one click.
- I would like the app to automatically recognise the refund in the event of delays (promise, fairness, customer loyalty).
- Display of good alternatives in case of delays (the best possible connection).
Ideate & Prototype
