Apurv Ray

I was approached by Redbus.in for the position of Lead UX Designer in 2013 and over the course of several interviews one of the tasks they gave me was to design a concept app called "bus buddy". They already had a solid ticket booking process in place, now they wanted to tap into the area after the ticket purchase till end of journey and make it a better experience overall. This is where the bus-buddy app comes into play. 

Screen 1

This is the place where user can see all his existing bookings in one place. You can also edit a booking or book return tickets from here. Once you select a journey you have booked you can see the information according to the stage of the journey. I divided the information into three logical parts; "pre journey" "post journey" and "during journey". Each part gives you relevant information which can prove useful for a better experience for the user.

Screen 2 & 3

These screens have the "pre journey" information. The key information leading upto the journey is presented to the user here, for example the pickup point selected and the ability to change it, the exact view that you would see in (both in front of you and behind you) as well as direction to the pickup point from prominent locations in the city. There are also several tips based on the length and journey areas to make it more comfortable. For example the type of clothes to wear, and whether or not its a good is a to carry food.

Screen 6

This screen houses the "During Journey" part of the app. There are three main components on this screen. First the approximate time remaining in this journey, second the time till the next pit-stop and third the progress bar with the stops and their types. From my own personal experience of travelling by bus or on road in general. The main delay happens due to unplanned stops along the way. The main reason for giving the progress bar was to intimate the passengers of a bus that there is a stop imminent and you dont need to request the bus driver to stop the bus so that you can go pee in the night. If you know there is something coming up in the next few minutes you might as well hold up. It follows the dictum that well-informed users interact better with the system. 

Screen 7 & 8

The last screen is the "Post Journey" screen. The two key components in this screen are the feedback unit and the important phone number for the users destination. Its happened with me several times that I land up in a  new city without the basic details like the local emergency services or car rentals. Providing this info can be useful and might as well be a revenue generation idea. Another important factor is understanding how was the users experience. A portal like redbus.in is a middleman between the bus agencies and the traveller. Understanding the traveler's experience and giving the agencies performance points is a key area of interest for them. Giving the users a feedback mechanism in line with the other components is likely to generate more interactions and ratings. 

Overall it was a good exercise in Mobile UX for me while i was working on this interview assignment and it did get me an offer from the company. I know there are lots of problems but I needed to finish this within 3-4 days and I did the best I could in that time period. Given the opportunity I would improve this projects interaction patterns and maybe with a little user research even the components on each screen. After all its the user who would decide what stays on or off the mobile as they are the only ones who can validate how useful everything I built is.