Two concepts fully tested in one month of design sprint
Can a solution for the future of public transport be designed in two weeks? Together with transport company aTB, we showed the enormous power of the design sprint methodology — and why iterations are more important than many people think.
How can we reduce private motoring in Trøndelag? That's one of the key questions the sharp heads in ATB's innovation department are working to find answers to. Two of the answers were so promising that they wanted to prototype them.
Hitchhiker for bus
The ideas AtB was ready to move forward with were two widely different approaches to the challenge of how to help people use the car less. One solution was intended for urban areas, the other for rural areas.
This is what we have done
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Two solutions — one month
The rural solution is in practice an integrated carpooling solution with a travel guarantee. If you need to get to the city center, but live in a place where there are few buses, you should be able to see in an app if there are other people who will drive just that stretch. You pay a bus ticket, but sit on with a private individual.
Naturally, the driver of the car receives a compensation for taking the ATB customer with him. Going no one the same way, you will be picked up by AtB. The idea is that if suffices people sign up as drivers, this solution will be better than an empty bus driving back and forth.
The Urban Solution were going to explore the possibilities of having completely routeless buses. That, with greater flexibility than today, you can travel across boroughs — and where the bus driver's route updates according to which passengers sign up for the trip. A bit like Uber, but sized for multiple travelers going to different places.
Increo's task was to come up with prototypes for these innovative ideas in an almost impossible time. The design process AtB had planned for two years, we were now given one month to carry out. Two solutions. Two weeks on each. Here we had to sprint.
Perfect for design sprint
And this was one such project where design sprint as a methodology really came into its own. It was big, complex -- and we hooked up early on.
For both solutions, the entire user journey was prototyped in Figma, starting from the same design as the current ATB app. The challenge was about more than creating a seamless user experience: Are we able to provide users with an adequate expectation description? Are we able to communicate security in a good way?
In both cases, the race was as follows:
design sprint → user test → evaluation → iteration sprint → new user test → evaluation
Becoming a pilot project
The urban solution created great interest among the test passengers. This was something the target audience wanted to use. Putting the idea into practice still has some other bumps in the road, but the feedback was clear: From a user perspective, the app solution was clear, and it was easy to place an order.
For the rural solution, the enthusiasm was even greater: Wasn't this too good to be true? Nope, and it's true, because already This autumn, AtB is launching a pilot project based on the prototype.
Iterations are worth gold
The project has been a crowning example of the value of design sprint as a method and improvements based on user testing. After the first prototypes, the customer's main concern was: After all, this is already so good, can't it just go downhill from here? Do we risk spending time on change instead of improvement?
When it came time for user test number two, with completely different test users, it became clear that we had not gone backwards or sideways, but made a long jump forward. People clicked their way so much faster through the prototype that user tests were conducted upon half the time. The iteration sprint had simply created enormous improvements that were not obvious.
Are you sitting on an idea that is too daring to take to the board, or that you are unsure if your customers will like? Get in touch and find out how we can help you with a prototype!
