MODA - Public Transport Super App

MODA is a super app which combined all processes of your public transport experiences

Role

Product Designer

Platform

iOS, Android

Timeline

August 2021

Project Overview

For those of you who use public transport for daily activities, maybe you are used to utilize e-money which supports payments for almost all public transport. Then, if you don't know the route, you will definitely open an application such as Trafi, Moovit, or Google Maps to find out what route you should take.

Imagine people who are using public transport for the first time or people who are coming to Jabodetabek Area for the first time, it must be difficult to be able to go from one place to another by public transport. Starting from purchasing tickets for each transport and also different route information provides by multiple applications. Dealing with all those differences requires a friendly hand to help. That’s the challenge I decided to face and overcome as a way to find a mobile solution that might fit the problems.

This case study describes the process I went through when trying to resolve this problem as well as defines its functionality based on the insights I derived along the way.

The Problems

I understand there is a lot application which shows you information about public transport in Jabodetabek area, but every application has its own function and there is no application that integrates all functions from showing routes information to buying tickets.

“What if there is an application that could combine all processes related to public transportation? Starting from showing route information, the ticket price, and also being able to order all the tickets needed?”

Target Users

I also tried to define two main target users for this project. The first are locals who regularly use public transport and the second one are first timer or tourist. Of course the one who will become main target users in this app is first timer and tourist, but I think we couldn't eliminate regular public transport users to become my secondary target users.

Research

Vision Validation

Although the primary focus of this project is the users, I thought it was also important to get some insights and think about the business goals of this applications. So I can identify what will make a product a success not only from what user's needs but also from the business side.

Business Goals

- Customer oriented
- Collaboration with each public transport company
- Wide market with quiet competitors
- High amount of users
- High retention rate

User Needs

- Up to date information about public transport
- Schedule of arrival and departure
- One-gate payment system

Products Opportunity

- Mobile application to access public transportation schedules
- Booking and purchasing tickets can be done directly
- Ticket purchase packages for many types of transportation according to the route of departure

Competitive Analysis

As I said before, there are many apps that have been made to solve our problems within public transport activities, but none of them combine everything we need. This reason made me to do competitive analysis to help me understand the important advantages and disadvantages, the important points which need to be taken into account, and the crucial features of the apps.

Trafi is an application from Lithuania and officially launched in Jakarta in May 2016. This application offers various alternative transportation routes to the destination and real time of vehicle arrival can also be monitored through this application.

KRL Access is a public transportation application provided by PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) Commuter Jabodetabek is very useful for those of you who often use Commuterline.

MRT-J is an application for purchasing MRT tickets with a variety of electronic money payment methods of your choice. This app also gives you information about schedule of every route of MRT Jakarta.

Moovit can provides a choice of the best route, the closest route to the destination, and the arrival time in real time. It can gives you complete control over your journey so you can rest easy on public transport.

TiJe is the official application from Transjakarta to find all official information from Transjakarta. You can get information on routes, stops, bus positions, types of services, opening of new services and many others at TiJeKu.

By conducting this type of research, I discovered that application that support purchasing ticket is only an official application of that transportation company. For the 3rd party application which covers a lot variety of transportation could not afford purchasing ticket system.

This is what stated in the problem statement. What if there was an application that could combine all processes related to public transportation? Start from showing route information, the ticket price, and also being able to order all the tickets needed?

User Research

To validate my assumptions and to gain more insights about this problem, I conduct 1-on-1 interviews with my friends who usually used public transportation as their daily transport. The result is quite comforting for me knowing that there actually are so many others who share the same feeling about this problems.

Key Findings

The research tells me about problems that most of the people who usually used public transportation app faced. These are the key findings.

- Information of delays and disruptions are inaccurate and irrelevant
- Different transport has different application to provide schedule and information. It waste their time
- Different transport also has a different payment system

Ideation

Vision Validation

Business Goals

- Customer oriented
- Collaboration with each public transport company
- Wide market with quiet competitors
- High amount of users
- High retention rate

User Needs

- Up to date information about public transport
- Schedule of arrival and departure
- One-gate payment system

Products Opportunity

Finding Solution

Problem 1 - Information of delays and disruptions are inaccurate and irrelevant

Solution 1.1 : Usie real time data to show the location of each transportation
Solution 1.2 : Always suggest more than one route

Problem 2 - Different transport has different application to provide schedule and information. It waste your time

Solution 2.1 : Collaborate with every public transport company to provide every informations needed
Solution 2.2 : Send notification about recent information about specific transportation based on users preference

Problem 3 - Different transport also has a different payment system

Solution 3.1 : Make one super app which provide route information, ticket price and able to purchase ticket
Solution 3.2 : Collaborate as 3rd party which direct user to each transport payment system

Feature Prioritisation

I have got a bunch of ideas from the problems, but I cannot apply all of these features. I used Impact vs Effort matrix to identify what I should do first.

Solution 3.2 still could not solve users problem and could be bothersome and time wasting for users.

Information Architecture

After knowing the solutions of the problems, I decided to visualize the flow using Information Architecture. The goal is to help people understand the app and find what they’re looking for easily.

Benchmarking

To get a clear vision about the flow and design, I tried to do benchmarking to few application based on the features I want to see.

Variety of Transport Information

For features which provides various kinds of information, I tried to take a look to what Trafi and Moovit had in their application.

Overall, Trafi and Moovit has a slight difference between their app design flow. This may because of Jakob’s Law which makes you to create slightly similar design and flow to help users adapt with the same types of application.

Ticket Transaction Detail

For ticket transaction, tije has a great flow and user interface.

Design

Vision Validation

Business Goals

- Customer oriented
- Collaboration with each public transport company
- Wide market with quiet competitors
- High amount of users
- High retention rate

User Needs

- Up to date information about public transport
- Schedule of arrival and departure
- One-gate payment system

Products Opportunity

Design System

Dark blue as primary color. For the sub color, I decided to use traffic light color (Red, Yellow and Green) to represent public transport.

Onboarding

Homepage

- Search bar on the top to help user search for places they want to visit.
- Balance information with blue background as the brand identity.
- Transport lines, shows you every public transport covered by this application.
- Travel history, shows you all recent history about your travel and how much it takes.

There is two ways to take public transport using this application:
1. You can buy ticket of any public transport you want to take
2. You can use on-the-go payment, it works like using e-money, when you have to top up the money into your account and just scan it in every station

If you want to use on-the-go payment feature, clicking blue circle button in the navbar will show you the qr code. The code validity will last for 3 minutes to prevent fraud. You can renew the code by clicking the button on the bottom right.

Visit Location

- Use search bar to search for place you want to visit, the app will give you few option of routes, types of public transport you should take and even the prices.
- You can see the detail of the routes and its ticket price.
- The point of sales in this application is, not only showing the prices, you also can buy it directly.

Payment

The payment inform you details about the tickets before you pay it. There are lot of option for you to choose what kind of payment method you want to take.

Transport Lines

Variety of transports lines inform you about their route and ticket prices.Every transport has slight different user interface based on their route and type of ticket. For example Transjakarta give you fixed price for their ticket as long as you didn’t checkout from the bus stop. On the other hand, KA Bandara have different ticket price based on your route.

My Tickets

- List of all tickets you’ve bought. It automaticaly sort by tickets who expired first.
- Ticket details contains information about the purchasing date, ticket validity and transaction number.
- The most important part is the QR Code. To use ticket, you have to scan QR Code to code scanner in the station.

Top Up My Wallet

- If you want to use on-the-go payment feature, you need to have balance in My Wallet. If you don’t you have to top up the balance.
- There are lot of option for you to choose what kind of payment method you want to take.
- Popup notification to inform you the payment was successful.

Live Prototype

Final Statement

Vision Validation

Business Goals

- Customer oriented
- Collaboration with each public transport company
- Wide market with quiet competitors
- High amount of users
- High retention rate

User Needs

- Up to date information about public transport
- Schedule of arrival and departure
- One-gate payment system

Products Opportunity

Designing this app has been a challenging journey. The major challenge was to make sure this app will be able to help not only first timer user but also regular user which usually using e-money.

What are the next steps?

- Deep research about specific features
- Usability testing with users