(Pitch Idea) Research should include: User Research; User Personas, Job Stories; Mockups; etc. Also consider market research: Customer Profiles; Value Proposition Canvas; Pains and Gains; etc.
This was our third and final project in Daniels class and it was to create a pitch about a product we had to come up with, which would help solve specific issues. We were being marked on the presentation as well as how we delivered it and the product we were pitching too. We would be presenting to a small number of our peers as well as Daniel and his colleges, Ronan and Hannah.
I was looking forward to this project the most as I love to talk and presentations are some of my favourite things to do, but before I started to work on the pitch at all, I first had to create the product that I was going to pitch to the audience.
So the first step in coming up with a a product is to come up with as many ideas as possible, or come up with issues and then how you would best resolve them, to figure out the the type of products you would be creating. Idea generation is not something new to me, as I’ve done it for every project in University, so I theory I should have been able to come up with a few ideas on what product I would like to create to help with a specific issue, to then pitch. However, when it came to putting ideas down on paper, I had ideas at all. I wasn’t even sure what types of issues I wanted to try and tackle to see if I could get an idea from those.
So I left that class quite unsure about what I was going to create and to add to my stress, I was getting the bus back to my home was is about 50 minutes away and to check the bus times I was using Translink. I thought I would be arriving at a good time so that the bus centre wasn’t too crowded but I was very wrong. The previous bus to my destination had been cancelled and this meant everyone who was suppose to get that bus was now getting the one I was too and this created a massive crowd. Not only had there been no update to let people know that bus was cancelled but there was also nothing to let other passengers know that when looking at bus times for that specific bus, that there was a possibility that there was going to be an overflow of people there, since the last bus had been cancelled. Once the next bus eventually showed up, it was a dog fight to try and get on and overall it was a terrible and extremely stressful experience with Translink.
Once I finally got a seat on the bus I was thinking about how useless the buses are with no live updates on your bus, location tracking to see where it currently is and the big one for me was no seat security. You can buy the ticket but that doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a seat on that bus. As this was ticking over in my mind I then realised how perfect this scenario is to help come up with a product that would sort all of this out, for my pitch. So for the full 50 minutes I was on the bus for, I was coming up with what main issues I want resolved when using the bus services.
The following week in class I got talking to Daniel about my idea and he seemed to really like it and gave me some helpful ideas on how I could make the app available to all bus services and not just Translink, so if you’re in Ireland or a completely different country you would still be able to use the bus services with little to no hassle.
User experiences and stories
I was very happy with my idea and with the good feedback I got from Daniel on it, I went ahead and moved to the research stage. For my research I wanted to get other peoples stories and experiences from using the bus services and see if it is a genuine issue. I began by going to some friends and even some family and gather stories from them, and as predicted there was very similar stories about how difficult it is to try and get a bus with the existing app you are suppose to use and how unreliable it all is. But I also wanted to get other people’s opinions, those who I don’t know so one of the days I was getting the bus I struck up a conversation with girl who aged 20 and we discussed the bus service and she said how
“stressful the whole thing is. Racing to get to the bus centre to only then find out it has been cancelled is extremely annoying. Everybody can use a phone so why not make an app that actually works with stuff we actually want to see.”
These stories, paired with my own experiences showed that this was a serious problem that could be resolved with a simple app and the right content. With this research I was able to to see what the users want to see from the product and what should be included.
Existing App Reviews
My next bit of research was to look over what already exist to help with this issue and for me it was the mlink app. The mlink app was created by Translink as a way to purchase tickets for specific busses however, it has had very bad reviews from all sorts of review sites, never reaching more than 2.5 stars. It is poorly designed with a lack of consistency for anything, icons with no meaning and overall poor usability.
It is still being used however, because it is the only one that works for translink and there is no other sort of app that does this, for the bus service in Northern Ireland and that is why it is still being used. My product will be created with the mlink app in mind as a guide of what not to do and the research I conducted on the existing app will help me create a better version of it.