Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Bonnie Lynn Tran Me running for the bus because it decides to come earlier than expected.

My daily commute involves a cycle of obsessively pocketing my phone and then pulling it out to check OneBusAway, a mobile app that provides real-time transit data. I often find myself on this train of thought: When does the 271 arrive? When should I leave campus in order to minimize the time I’ll have to wait at the stop?! Is the bus going to be late?! The answer is probably yes and so, I pull out my phone again despite checking only moments ago.

Smart Watch Design Exercise

Although a minor annoyance, I know I am not alone in my public transportation induced fretting. I found this to be the perfect problem for this week’s paper prototyping challenge: to design for a smart watch. Makes sense– smart watches are meant to be less obtrusive to interact with compared to a phone. For this exercise, I prototyped OneBusAway on a smart watch interface, which simplifies bus time information and updates users on estimated time of arrival through haptic feedback. As users interact with OneBusAway either on mobile or watch, the interaction is mirrored on the other.

Paper and Post-Its

Smart phone and smart watch paper prototypes for OneBusAway

To test the concept, I used low-fidelity paper prototyping techniques. Paper, card stock, and sticky notes were used to build the concept. As shown in above, screens were drawn along a single axis that can be pulled up and down (on the mobile prototype) or side to side (on the watch). Sticky notes were overlaid in order to show the effect of changing time on haptic feedback. These methods worked well in simulating the interaction, especially sliding from screen-to-screen through the frames. Overlaying sticky notes was less robust; pulling off the stickies to reveal an updated time could be quicker. The sliding technique may be an option here. Vibration output was the one interaction I could not represent with paper prototyping– I had to call on the Wizard of Oz for this one.

“Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz” — Bonnie buzzes

Learnings

Participant wearing the prototypeFeedback from colleagues

User testing brought about positive interest, demonstrating that a smart watch extension of OneBusAway’s mobile app would be desirable. However, improvements can be made. Several participants pointed out unclear navigation from screen-to-screen. This is a usability issue that I would address by adding a ‘back’ button. One participant further suggested exploring notifications for bus delays.

Overall, testing and evaluating a low-fidelity paper prototype was a solid first step in surfacing feedback and design directions.

The Bus is Coming. Run! was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Bus is Coming. Run!

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