Charlie: Your Transit Helper
Spring 2019 | Rapid prototyping, usability testing, user research, field research
Charlie is The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA)'s next generation mobile application. With Charlie, riders have the ability to transform their public transportation experience.
This app allows users to enable contactless payment via their existing Charlie Card, smartphone, or contactless credit card. While Charlie aims to usher in a new era of convenience using all the modes of MBTA transportation, my team was tasked with designing for the top three most popular transit options: Subway, Commuter Rail, and Bus.
I collaborated with three fellow design students to conduct field research, usability tests, and build a clickable Charlie prototype within a given assignment timeline of 4 weeks for Tufts University's Computer Interface Design course.
User should be able to...
- View a digital Charlie Card
- Add value to a digital Charlie Card or set up automatic withdrawals by linking your credit
card/Apple pay/checking account - Use nfc when walking through turnstiles in train stations and onto buses/commuter rails
- Purchase commuter rail tickets
- View a monthly total of MBTA expenses
- View statistics/insights about your travel habits and see how you compare to others
- Sign up for notifications about your route
- View the real-time position of different trains
- View transit maps, time tables, and plan a route using the MBTA
- Share your location with friends
- Access special “lightning” deals with partner business located near train stops
- Contact the MBTA in case of emergency
Focus Group Findings
We conducted 3 focus groups of 5 participants each to gauge what Boston-area residents like and dislike about their current navigation mobile apps (e.g. Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze):
- automatic rerouting
- alternative routes
- real-time navigation
- required cell service or wifi
- unclear interface for navigating within stations
- unreliable transit schedules
Rough Design Ideation
Concept 1: Infrequent users
Concept 2: Power users
High-Fidelity Mockups
Charlie's color palette reflects Boston’s iconic marriage of land and sea.
Draft 1
Usability Testing
We conducted small sample usability testing (N = 4) on participants with a variety of transportation preferences and frequencies. For example, Participant 1 stated that he primarily uses his own bicycle to get around the city, while Participant 2 commutes daily via MBTA trains. Participants 3 and 4 regularly use a combination of transportation methods.
Findings: Draft 1 to Draft 2 Changes
Participants found "My Tickets" to be an ambiguous label, motivating us to rename that section to "My Cards."
Further iconography was incorporated in this screen to reduce clutter.
We drew inspiration from elements of popular mobile wallet UI to replace the previous swipe interface.
The interactivity of saved destinations (e.g. Work and Home) was not intuitive to our test participants, so we adjusted their placement and button style.
Final (Draft 2) Prototype
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