UX Design Project: FAREGround
Project completed alongside Career Foundry's UX Design Course to demonstrate my understanding of the Design Thinking Process.
I've included key moments from the Ideaton and Prototyping stages as visuals but you can view the full Design Thinking Process for more details about the Empathise, Define and Testing stages.
This is the product, prototyped using Figma, currently in testing:
Background
In the UK, the public are becoming increasingly frustrated with annual train fare hikes. For many, the cost of their journeys are becoming unaffordable but they remain reliant on national rail services.
I want to know more about how the public feel about train costs and their experience finding affordable tickets. The findings will help understand consumer pain points, habits and behaviours regarding rail travel expenses.
Empathising: user research
The aim of user research is to better understand public feeling towards train travel costs and how they attempt to find cheap tickets.
I conducted a semi-structured interview study over the course of two weeks. Participants were family and friends who travel by train - range of ages, geographical location and incomes. Interviews were in-person and over video call.
Defining
After analysing the key findings, I defined the problem statement:
Rail users aged 31-59 find it difficult and time-consuming to find cheap train tickets online.
Ideating
After brainwriting as many potential solutions to address the problem, I created a visual mindmap, grouping ideas where relevant:
I then categorised the ideas based on feasibility, impact, cost and potential to delight.
The idea that clearly and specifically addresses user needs is the Ticket Resale App.
After SWOT analysis, there were some potential threats to feasibility around the rules and regulations of reselling rail tickets, but further research has not identified this as a reason to change direction.
Prototyping
I sketched out mid-fidelity prototypes to test.
Testing and prototyping
I tested and addressed user feedback before building high fidelity prototypes in Figma.
Several users commented on the need for it to feel more like a community. I landed on the name FareGround and built the brand deck around that theme. The look and feel needed to stand out from major train company brands.
See breakdown of the prototyping and testing phases for more detailed explanation of design decisions.
The product currently in testing is shared at the top of the page. It shows a screen record of the key expected journeys.
Thank you for reading.
