Secondary Research Different user groups Who are the users for the public transportation ticket feature?

To understand how the E-ticket feature in the Map app would be useful, I have started the project’s research with a competitor’s analysis to find out what cities in Europe that have an E-ticket system available.

From my observation and research, the potential group of users is:

1. Local Residents

2. Professional Expats

3. Tourists

However, Professional Expats and Tourists are falling into a similar category when it comes to their experience with the different public transportation systems in Europe.

What do locals want?

From my observation is that local residents are the people who already have a good understanding of how the local public transportation system works.

What to consider about them is:

1. What do they like or dislike about their current way of buying tickets?

2. Do they prefer E-ticket over a physical ticket?

3. Do they expect a particular routine with owning a ticket?

4. Do they use Google Map within their own city?

5. How do they feel about their local public transportation system?

What do professional expats want?

Professional expats are the people that could be frequent business travelers or workers that temporarily locate in a different city than their residential town. From my observation, this group of users is relatively similar to the tourists because they may have low or no experience with the city system.

Language and ability to navigate themselves through the city may not be as good as local residents. They also may not plan to stay in the town for long, either.

What to consider about them:

1. Professional Expats tend not to make a commitment to own a separate app.

2. Will they still find it easy to buy a ticket in Google Map?

3. Do they have any experience of using a ticket app of an unfamiliar city?

4. What does feel about the public transportation system in different places?

5. What they like or dislike about their experience in using a ticket app of an unfamiliar city? (If they did try before)

6. What kind of support do they wish to have for using public transportation?

What do tourists want?

As I mentioned above, professional expats and tourists are very similar in terms of their level of knowledge about an unfamiliar public transportation system. From my observation is that the majority of tourists trust Google Map as a way to help them navigating around the city and even for guiding them through the unfamiliar public transportation system. They also cannot invest a lot of time during their trip as much as expats do (Most cases, very little time).

What to consider about them:

1. They most likely do not prefer to download a local app.

2. They most likely have a very poor understanding of the different public transportation systems. What kind of terms or words that would help them to understand as well as the local users?

3. What icons are the must-have for the feature, to help them to understand with using this feature?

4. Do they have any experience of using a ticket app of an unfamiliar city?

5. What does feel about the public transportation system in different places?

6. What they like or dislike about their experience in using a ticket app of an unfamiliar city? (If they did try before)

7. What kind of support do they wish to have for using public transportation?

Smartwatch Feature

To learn and understand the possibility of designing this ticket feature for a . I have gathered examples and tips for creating the smartwatch feature.

The problem that I have to be aware of design a smartwatch feature is, the different shape of the interface.

Android wear vs.

According to Luke W, he explains that Android wear and Apple watch are absolutely different in terms of the interface shape and scroll flow.

He explains, “When starting from a watch face with touch, Android Wear mostly maintains a continuous vertical scroll path. Apple Watch's scroll flow, on the other hand, varies between vertical and horizontal swipe interactions.”

It is important for me to choose to design the feature to suitable for a specific kind of device. (I plan to focus on apple watch since I found that Apple watch is quite more popular than the android wear at the moment)

The reason to design a ticket feature for smartwatch

Since a smartwatch has become more popular as a gadget that improves user’s productivity. What to keep in mind about the purpose of smartwatch features and app is;

“The best apps for support fast interactions and focus on the content that users care about most. The app must quickly provide the user with all the essential information and actions. You can achieve this goal by keeping interfaces uncluttered and creating a clear hierarchy for information.”1

As I am new to designing a smartwatch feature, I found helpful tips from XD Adobe Article 2about what UX designers should keep in mind:

• Avoid displaying too much information on the screen at once. Show only essential details that users need to see.

• Emphasize important information using different font weight, size, color, and whitespace.

• Create visual groupings to help users find the information they want. Use negative space to place related elements and information into distinct areas.

• Try to use system fonts. San Francisco (SF) is the system font in Apple watchOS (it’s available in two variants-SF Compact Text and SF Compact Display). Condensed is the primary font used in Google Wear OS.

1 https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/principles/app-design/ux-design-for-smartwatches/ 2 https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/principles/app-design/ux-design-for-smartwatches/

• Don’t include unnecessary features, actions, or content in your app’s watch UI. Focus on primary operations.

Inspiration for ticket feature

I have found pictures of E-ticket features in Apple Watch. And this is what I believe it is possible to design a similar feature for Google Map ticket like the following:

This is a great inspiration of how things could possibly look like for Google Map feature Source from Railwaygazette.com3

3 https://www.railwaygazette.com/news/technology/single-view/view/trainline-launches-apple- watch-app.html