Get to your class on time.
UX Designer
Responsibilities
User Research • Storyboarding • User Journey Map • Wire-framing • Usability Testing • Prototyping
As of right now, students need to use multiple apps to figure out how to get to their destination in Champaign-Urbana. Moreover, due to severe weather, road conditions, or unexpected events, they often miss their buses without any prior notification. When conducting our competitive analysis we realized there isn't a well-rounded transit app for the UIUC campus.
The solution we came up with is Chambana. We utilized the Human-Centered Design mindset and went through each stage of Design Thinking. The final output being a high-fidelity prototype based on our research.
How might we improve how students navigate the CUMTD (Champaign–Urbana Mass Transit District bus system?"
During this phase, we conducted research to help us better understand our problem space. First, we shared our own knowledge regarding the problem, and then we conducted a competitive analysis. We reflected upon our own biases and how they can influence our decisions when conducting the project. We then revisited and refined our project scope to: "How can we improve the way students get around campus?" Lastly, we conducted five semi-structured interviews with participants who are either users of CUMTD buses or students who commute using other various methods.
We framed 9 how might we questions. HMW questions allow us to reframe our insights into opportunity areas and innovate on problems found during user research.
We found that our interviewees follow a similar path when commuting on campus. We created a journey map to help us navigate their experience of commuting.
Based on the solution we decided to proceed with, we created a storyboard to showcase an example of a journey a user might take to get to their destination.
We created a mood board to ensure our team is on the same page about what we want the design language to look like for the mockup of the rider interface.
I developed a site map to organize the information architecture of our app. This site map helps us clearly understand the flow of the app.
Our team conducted usability directly from the Figma prototype of our early design. We found pain points within our app and sought to fix them in our next iteration.
Check out Chambana for yourself! UX is a never-ending job so I will continue to work on Chambana in the future! Press F for fullscreen.
This project was my first introduction to design thinking. I now use design thinking whenever I can. It allows me to think outside the box and solve problems using human-centered techniques.
This project had a substantial research workload before we came up with our designs. I learned to trust the process and let the research speak for itself. Don’t fall into the Figma trap and skip straight to high-fidelity designs. Plan and do the UX work.
Empathizing with the users helped us understand whom we are designing for. As a fellow bus rider, I was able to sympathize with the problems people faced. This motivated me to come up with the best solutions for the commute experience.
My goal is to incorporate a dark-mode version of Chambana. Allow users to select their preference in settings and change the color of the map and/or interface.
This project’s flow was made with Figma animations. In the future, I would love to craft specific component interactions and animations with Protopie, i.e. an expanding search bar.
Last but not least, I would love to get Chambana developed and deployed on campus. If all goes well, carry it out to other campuses using the platform.
