Texas Central Railway
Booking app for the (proposed) highspeed rail between Dallas and Houston
Company
Texas Central Railway
My Role
UX Designer & Researcher
the problem
Texas needs to address transport for growing population while keeping emissions low
The population of the Lone Star state is growing by almost 200,000 people a year, leaving major cities struggling to adapt infrastructure to the influx.
In order to make upfor these new Texans, more goods have to travel by road between Texas' largest cities, leaving less room on the highway for the common traveler.
the solution
A highspeed train in the Dallas—Houston corridor would offset output for 100K travelers along this route weekly
The population of the Lone Star state is growing by almost 200,000 people a year, leaving major cities struggling to adapt infrastructure to the influx.
In order to make upfor these new Texans, more goods have to travel by road between Texas' largest cities, leaving less room on the highway for the common traveler.
Simple booking between the line's three stations
- Find a train route in minimum 6 taps on mobile interface
- Sort to find the earliest or the cheapest train times
- Quick access to current COVID-19 travel information
Options for upgrades, flexibility
- Easily find larger seats or more amenities before checkout
- Refunds and changes allowed under certain terms & conditions
- Discounts available for students and active military, just show ID when your ticket is checked
Easy access to tickets
- Two points of access to an active, upcoming ticket
- 1-click access to mobile boarding pass with QR code
- Reminders for passengers to avoid fines when checking tickets
the meat
Texans look for ease and cost-friendliness when planning trips
Because travelers emphasized ease of booking, travel, and price as their main motivators when choosing an alternate mode of transport, I focused on building a simple interface that highlighted these qualities.
- Interviewees expressed that they preferred to see easy comparison of ticket prices/times before booking a train ticket
- Interviewees expected to be able to change their ticket when booking train/plane travel
- Most interviewees weren't interested in many amenities when faced with a short 90-minute journey, the time it would take to cross Texas by train
- People want to be able to do it all from their phone, and not have to leave the app to retrieve a ticket
the frugal college kid persona
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mapping scenarios
Empathizing to ideate the ideal experience for travelers
Building the persona was very effective in centering the scope on one demographic, while including aspects of others' lives that would be applicable to a wider set of travelers. For this reason I created a scenario map, built from comments taken during initial user interviews.
Mapping scenarios for:
- Browsing within the app to find an appropriate
- Arranging that ticket to have a flexible return date
- Retrieving the ticket while at the station/on the train
- Receiving updates for the trip before/during travel
ideating flows
Creating the blueprint with research in mind
With the help of user stories shaped by my white paper, other discovery research and the "frugal college kid persona" I built flows highlighting the main things users would expect to see on a highspeed train app. During this stage I focused on tasks and signifiers rather than the screens themselves.
testing + improvements made
3 major improvements made after usability tests
During moderated usability testing with 5 users, painpoints were identified and addressed to simplify the design and reveal a more intuitive and flexible experience for travelers.
1
Rearranging atomic components
- In testing, users found the Outbound card took up too much space on the screen
- Added right-aligned hints and clearer prices to the route cards
2
Keeping the most necessary content
- Based on user feedback, trip length and number of stops weren't important in this step
- Added helper text to make verifying tickets more convenient
3
Highlighting essentials on boarding pass
- Made the alert more prominent by adding a universal info icon
- QR code placed at the bottom for easier access by conductor
created in figma
The Style Guide
Using the trainline's logo as a metric I built high-fidelity screens with those same colors and adapted secondary color schemes as tints from the original hues. Below are also examples of the typography scale and some of the components used in building the final screens.
final screens
Ticket booking flow
These screens follow the path of choosing a departing point and destination, picking train lines and ticket preferences, inputting personal/payment information and retrieving a boarding pass with a scannable QR code.
conclusion
Lessons learned to carry forward
- Measure twice, cut once. In order to avoid rework further in the project I made a major effort in the beginning of this project to explore solutions to the problem before ideating any wireframes.
- Components make the job easier. I wasn't utilizing all of the available features of Figma originally. This limited my ability to make global changes to the interface. By employing components I wasn't only making my job easier, but eliminating discrepancies in the interface that could be accessibility issues.
- Collaboration is key. Getting multiple opinions to poke holes in your strategy, affordances and flows is key to building a product that considers a diverse population of users with different needs and abilities.
- A small group of interviewees and research participants makes findings myopic. This goes without saying, but less variety in testers only makes a product "good" for a certain group of people.
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