MS Transportation Hub

Multi-platform mobile application

Overview

Microsoft employees find it difficult to plan and manage their commute reservations. Separate commute services are difficult to learn how to use, difficult keep track of and don’t have anything in common. Employees end up driving, even though they can save time and money with the commute benefits.

Goal

Build a centralized system which brings together different commute services Microsoft has to offer to their employees, so that they can make the best decision on how to get from point A to point B.

Encourage employees to use these services to decrease the single occupancy vehicle count in the city and help reduce the carbon footprint.

My Role UX Designer with Employee Experience Team

Skills User Research, Personas, Scenarios, Task Flows, Wireframes, Information Architecture, UI Prototype, Accessibility, Usability Studies

Duration 1.5 years (Research, define, ideate, prototype, user test, develop)

Tools & Techniques Surveys, Card sorting, Adobe XD, Illustrator, Powerpoint.

Context

The Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington is a widely distributed campus spread across Redmond, Bellevue and Seattle. With over 30 buildings, Microsoft provides different transportation services to help the employees get around campus or to/from home. However, this system was not mobile friendly, and different services required different websites therefore they lacked a single entry point.

As a relatively new employee myself and a prime user of the shuttle cars the company offered, I noticed the huge gap among the different modes of commute. This was a great user experience problem to solve.

Discovery

User Research

Held user interviews and surveys to learn about the user and understand the day to day problems commuters face. Interviewed people at heavily used transit centers to understand key points like the routes most frequently used, commonly used commute modes, what're the daily challenges they faced and their step-by-step process of making a reservation with using commute system. These persona’s accurately describe the key user types.

Insights

User Research gave us tremendous amount of knowledge on user behavior, user preferences and the limitations of the transportation system.

Types of Users - Interns, New employees, Guests, Explorers and Power users.

Single Login - Commuters prefer having one account (Microsoft account) to access the different commute services.

Learn - New and potential employees need a common place to learn about the different commuter services and benefits.

Route Discovery - Employees want to find out what’s the best way to get to their next meeting / home / work using these services.

Manage Booking - Employees want the ability to book recurring trips and manage their reservations on the go.

Track my ride - Employees want to track their shuttle / connector on the go, similar to Uber or Lyft.

Notifications - Employees want reminders and notifications about changes to their trips.

Problem Definition

Problem Statement

Commuters find it difficult to plan and manage their trips, because of multiple apps and logins. It’s difficult to find these apps and learn how to use them. Employees end up driving, even though they can save time and money with the commute benefits. Frequent commuters or power users find it difficult to manage their recurring reservations on a daily basis.

Use Cases

Every Microsoft employee or guest who wants to get from point A to point B for work purposes in the greater Seattle Area.

• Use Cases

  • Employees who use shuttle to get to work

  • Employees who drive to work and use shuttles to get to a meeting.

  • Employees who don’t have a car.

Location based scenarios

User research helped us understand all the different situations during which employees rely on the commute services. This helped us define meaningful user scenarios which are based on pick up and drop off locations. The primary scenarios are highlighted below.

• Go to my office from home.

• Go to my next meeting in a different building.

• Go to a meeting in a different building (that’s not my office) from home.

Goals

1. Create a single mobile solution, with one-time login to help employees go from Point A to Point B using any or multiple modes.

2. Allow users to discover routes and plan their trip.

3. Allow users to create and manage their trips on the go.

4. Allow users to track their shuttle on the map.

5. Allow users to save recurring trips and favorite destinations.

Ideation for shuttle booking

There are 2 types of shuttles.

• On demand shuttles which need to be booked with a pick up and drop off location.

• Fixed route shuttles which run on a schedule and do not require booking.

Based on the pick up and drop off locations, there are 3 types of trips a user could be making.

1. An on demand shuttle trip

2. A multi-leg trip where the first leg is an on-demand shuttle and the second leg is a fixed route shuttle.

3. A multi-leg trip where the first leg is a fixed route shuttle and the second leg is an on demand route shuttle.

Perfecting the USER FLOW with other modes

Defining the user flow helped organize the content for the application and simplify the experience. Visualizing this ensured that there were no open ends and all the possibilities were covered.

Prototypes

User approved wireframes were then used to design the final prototypes, which followed the Microsoft design and accessibility guidelines. The green theme color was chosen to reflect the green connector and shuttle buses. 

Windows Phone

These high fidelity wireframes were designed using Microsoft’s Windows phone UI design guidelines.

Hamburger Menu

Hamburger menu is located on the top left corner of the screen. When expanded, it provides access to the about settings, profile and feedback pages within the application.

On-demand Shuttle Booking

From the book tab, you can book a shuttle in two ways. Either from selecting the destination building from the dropdown list, or by selecting the building from the map.

Multi-leg shuttle booking

From the book tab, you can also book trips with multiple legs. The below examples show booking of two types.

• On-demand Shuttle + Fixed Route

• Fixed Route Shuttle + On-demand Shuttle

My Trips and Canceling a Trip

You can view all your upcoming trips on the ‘My Trips’ tab. You can also cancel a trip with 2 clicks.

Impact

The following features improved the commute experience for numerous employees.

1. A mobile app with one-time login helped users to book and view reservations on the go.

2. Interface with a map view of the campus helped provide a more intuitive experience while booking their trip.

3. One click booking for multi-leg trips, minimized the time and effort invested in planning and managing their trip.

4. Live tracking of the shuttle and connector buses minimized dependency and improved accuracy.

5. First time user effort reduced by 40%, returning user effort reduced by 80%.

6. No. of booking increased by 25%, resulting in lower single occupancy vehicles and carbon footprint.

TEAM MEMBERS AND COLLABORATION

The UX team comprised of a Senior Designer and myself. The team included 2 program managers and 4 developers, all of whom were enthusiastic about UX and actively participated during user research and feedback sessions.