Ironhack’s Prework:[Design Thinking]_Challenge1
Citymapper; a travel app declared the best in New York City
Citymapper claims of making cities usable. It is a public transit app and mapping service which displays transport options, usually with live timing, between any two locations in a supported city. It provides information about all possible urban modes of transport, including walking, cycling, and driving, in addition to public transport. Citymapper started in 2011 in London. Its second city was New York. In August 2020 travel in 58 cities and metropolitan areas was covered. In December 2019 the app added a feature that allows users to choose between a “fast” route or “main roads” which avoid dimly-lit areas.
While interviewing different people around, I found out that the app has gained much popularity, and is beneficial to many. But most of the people were complaining of the inconvenience they have to face getting tickets. Be it getting the ticket from a vending machine especially where they are not the natives or waiting in the long queues to collect tickets. Sometimes the language of vending machines is not understandable in a foreign country. And finally, when they get a ticket it turns out to be a wrong choice. This hassle costs time and money.
I decided to make the ticketing system more user-friendly, so people can enjoy their visits outside the homeland also. Moreover, in today’s world full of COVID-19 threats, we need a solution for avoiding waiting in queues and using vending machines.
After brainstorming, I came up with an electronic ticketing system. The system allows the user to buy the ticket online, and just scan the QR code on the ticket through an embedded system while he enters the public transport. Also, the user is informed about the prices of all available packages according to his trip’s route so he can wisely choose among them. On choosing the number of tickets, any discounts if applicable on group tickets are also displayed.
I still need to test this prototype with the users. During this process, I enjoyed listening to people’s concerns and thinking of a way out to resolve the issues they are facing. This way I learned the design thinking process, by actually doing it! Now I can say Emphasize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test is the way to design a solution.
