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User Studies

shekhark edited this page Jan 12, 2013 · 1 revision

Table of Contents

User Types

Ongoing user research, but the types we see now are: regulars for whom time matters, regulars for whom time does not matter that much, and new travelers.

Regular travelers, no time constraint ('chalta hai')

  • Use every day the same bus, that may be early, late or at the normal time.
  • Avoid changing bus, because it may take them longer than a direct bus even if the direct bus does not go straight at all.
  • Avoid rush hour, so try to travel early in the morning, and try to work around the evening rush hour.
  • Are not particularly looking to find easier or better buses since they believe there is no way to bypass the crowd on the road.

Regular travelers, time constraint

  • Use every day the same bus, if it gets late or they miss it they may switch to an auto. They face the dilemma of whether to take the auto or to go by another bus or wait more.
  • Are always looking out to control time, so don't mind changing buses if they believe it makes them faster.
  • Have to leave well in time to make sure they are at their work before official office hours start.
  • Are on the lookout for ways to get more information about the bus, know about or even use existing smartphone apps to optimise their route.

New Travelers

  • Mainly depend on fellow travelers or the conductor/driver of the bus.
  • Regularly get sent to the wrong departure bus stop, since people don't know much apart from when their own regular route is concerned.
  • Regularly get wrong bus numbers from other travelers
  • Regularly enter the wrong bus or the right bus into the wrong direction
  • Are not very aware of the rush hour of areas on their route.
  • Are busy trying to understand how to behave/get the information required for successful traveling by bus.

For all travelers

  • longer distance travelers use larger connecting bus stops that have a lot of departing buses in their direction. This is to avoid waiting time when they have to change.
  • it seems that there are two types of buses: the ones that are going pretty straight and buses that curl around to pick up people from inside places. The straight ones are usually very crowded but reach faster.
  • people usually opt for bus routes that go direct, in spite of options that are potentially faster but have one or more transfers. The transfers are regarded as costing more time than is saved by the shorter route.

User Tasks

Route finding

  • Find the departure location
  • Find the destination location
  • Find out the route options
  • Pick the easiest one (least changes) as well as deciding importance of
    • walking / riksha distance from departure to bus stop and from arrival bus stop to arrival location
    • least number of transfers
    • shorter route (potentially shorter travel time)
    • traffic conditions reasonably good
    • expected waiting time / bus frequencies
    • tips/notifications from fellow travelers on any part of the travelers particular route (not bus line route)
  • Confirm that departure & destination locations are the right ones
  • Store/memorise route information
  • Evaluate route real time (using gps information or manual search)
  • Update route if any changes occur on the way (missed a connecting bus, did not get out at the right stop, etc)

Trip Reviewing

between () parts that are optional for the user to perform

  • Login
  • Go to trip review/stats page (or click on desired stats if available upfront after login)
  • Find the trip that user has made
  • View trip details like date/time of trip, distance covered, time taken, average time for the route taken and rating of the trip as compared to previous times people traveled by that route.
  • (Confirm whether this trip was actually made)
  • (Add trip experience comments)
  • (Add any notifications or tips for fellow travelers)
  • (See related trip stats)
  • (View comments, tips and notifications of others for (parts of) the trip made)

Search for particular area/bus route/road/busstop (via Google search) to find information or to complain

  • Lands on route/area/road/busstop page
  • Checks any tips/notifictions, events, extra information, images
  • If decides to find a route to/from here: starts from 'Route Finding' task flow.
  • If decides to edit from here: follows 'Editing route/stop/etc ' task flow.

Editing Route/Stop/Road/Area information

After a user discovers missing information, or wrong information from any location of the site

  • Enter the 'editing mode'
  • (View changes pending for approval)
  • (View comments by others on the topic of edit)
  • (Add comment on topic of edit)
  • Create the edit
  • Save the edit and return to original location to get the user back in their original context and task flow (if applicable)

Crowd sourcing

This has not yet been sufficiently researched , see link here http://wiki.chalobest.in/index.php?title=Front_End#Crowdsourcing_of_transit_data