The CMU shuttle system aims to be a safe, reliable transportation option for students and faculty members to get to and from campus. CMU GSA approached our team in hopes of improving the shuttle system since various issues such as inability to gather comprehensive shuttle information and difficulty in finding the physical shuttle stops are still very prevalent in the community. From several rounds of research, our team recognized that a major trend across users is the lack of easy access to information about the shuttle service.
The MOAI is a physical kiosk located at CMU shuttle stops that riders can easily locate and interact with to discover real-time shuttle information like current shuttle capacities. On top of being a central resource for shuttle information, it also has an integrated check-in system that maps out the shuttle journey for drivers and ensures that riders have a stress-free journey to their destination.
As the Head of Research, I oversaw all research operations, defined research goals for the team, and approved research details and participants. This was carried out through regular progress check-ins with team members, accommodations for unexpected situations, and reminder messages to the team for deadlines. I also documented research tasks for each team member and made sure that each team member clearly understood their research purpose. Finally for participant recruitment, I ensured that the participants would contribute information pertinent to our project focus and that they were willing to cooperate in our research.
We were mostly able to divide the work for each research method equally, but still had to split up some of the work. Notably, I spearheaded the affinity diagramming with Roxanne and took charge of logistical coordination for experience prototyping with our physical kiosk.
"I find the information on the RideSystems app often inaccurate." "I decide whether to take the shuttle based on how long I will have to wait." "I have to constantly check my location on Google Maps in order to get off at the correct stop."
"I find the information on the RideSystems app often inaccurate."
"I decide whether to take the shuttle based on how long I will have to wait."
"I have to constantly check my location on Google Maps in order to get off at the correct stop."
Have you ever had such a bad first experience that you never wanted to try something again? This is the exact feedback that we received from many amateur CMU shuttle riders, who were scared away by multiple parts of the shuttle riding experience—from inability to find shuttle stops to conflicts with the bus driver because riders did not know when their stop was. Our team set out to use various research methods to understand the root cause of these pain points and innovate on an empowering solution.
Initial research from both quantitative sources such as the RideSystems app data and qualitative data gathered from contextual inquiries and think-alouds revealed five overarching key insights:
1. Decrease in overall ridership across each fiscal year, but notable differences in the ridership of various shuttle routes which could reflect the changes in needs of those who live in certain areas around campus
2. Heavy shuttle ridership during 8 to 10am and 6 to 9pm, reinforcing the notion that the CMU Shuttle Service is essential for students’ transportation needs to and from campus
3. Riders are unsure where stops are located even when displayed on maps on mobile transportation apps (Tiramisu and RideSystems) and on the CMU shuttle website
4. Riders’ transportation needs depend on three important circumstances: convenience, weather, and perception of accurate, updated data
5. Students consistently report referencing another student’s involvement in their own decision to take the shuttle to not only learn about the shuttle service overall, but also the complementary apps and other tips and tricks about the service
Based on these insights, our team determined that a major pain point for our student riders was a lack of information about the shuttle system overall, the state of the shuttles they wait for, and even where shuttle stops exist.
Since most of the background research was done individually, our team decided to look at all of our research reports and affinity diagrams together to review, share, and discuss the findings so far. Through this activity, we came to a common understanding of the CMU shuttle system with these insights:
In order to generate new, innovative ideas within the space of student transportation, we identified our pre-existing assumptions about the CMU shuttle system and generated the statements in reverse.
We sat down together to brainstorm stakeholders and think about how they relate together in the bigger system. This helped us identify potential users of our proposed solution, and how a solution may have bigger implications when considering the relationships between stakeholders.
Our team defined our research goals, questions/hypotheses, and methods table to help us consider what we want to proceed with in our research plan. Then, we selected aligning questions and methods based on their importance and benefit respectively. The topics we wanted to focus on were crowdsourcing methods and real-time data collection, and we wanted to find out how users may benefit from information from various inputs as well as how they might use information in different scenarios.
To understand the shuttle riding experience of our target groups, we followed both frequent and infrequent shuttle riders on their complete shuttle riding journey to take notes and observe.
We sorted the interpretation notes from the contextual inquiry through affinity diagramming to identify general categories of needs and key user pain points. These insights became the starting point for our proposed solution.
In order to gauge interest in and test feasibility of our proposed crowd-sourcing solution, we conducted online surveys to identify rider interest and willingness to be a part of a crowdsourced shuttle riding network.
Based on survey results, we derived the following insights:
From this point on, we decided to pursue a limited crowdsourcing solution that does not require much input effort from riders but still can provide provide information on the popular areas of interest (shuttle capacity and shuttle delay).
Each team member presented multiple storyboards to users in order to trigger discussion about the proposed scenarios, which helped us gather fast feedback and generate new ideas.
We found that riders prefer cheap, simple solutions that are free and less time consuming. Users also value real-time and accurate shuttle information but are not majorly concerned about privacy.
As a team, we selected and voted on the top concept we wanted to move forward with: a digital touchscreen that will be a part of a shuttle bus stop. With this approach, users are able to have access to the information they need in a simple and straightforward manner to prepare for their upcoming shuttle journey.
We tested our low-fidelity prototypes with our target users to quickly assess ease of use and identify areas of improvement. Through this method, we confirmed that people perceive the app interface to be about transportation and, as we had hoped, specifically a transportation app about the CMU shuttle service. However, user interest in interacting further with our screen was average—some participants seemed open to it but only a few seemed willing to do so on their own.
Our team iterated on the low-fidelity prototype to make refinements based on the 5-second testing feedback:
Previously, our 5-second tests focused only on the interface component of our proposed solution. With experience prototyping, we wanted to test the check-in system and physical aspect of our proposed solution in the form of an object that users can interact with to understand how it may be integrated in a space.
From multiple rounds of testing, we gathered the following insights about user needs and our current prototype:
Our final solution culminates as an interactive kiosk that targets all of our main pain points found through multiple rounds of research:
1. The interactive interface condenses all important information in one place, with a focus on real-time, accurate data
2. The physicality of the kiosk increases awareness of shuttle stops and the CMU shuttle service as a whole
3. The integrated check-in system allows both riders and drivers to determine stops ahead of time, eliminating the need to struggle with broken bus pull-cords or yell at drivers
The final feature also provides passive crowdsourced data such as shuttle capacity for important stakeholders like drivers and the CMU transportation system. All in all, our solution addresses our focus while also affording opportunities for future development.
Digital kiosk main screen with real-time updates on shuttle route times and capacities (left) Information page with instructions on how to ride the shuttle (right)
Map view of selected shuttle route
Select a shuttle route after scanning your ID card
Scroll through shuttle stops to select your destination
Confirm your stop to complete the check-in process
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