Researching, designing and testing with the public to inform the design and development of a new transportation service
2021 - 2023
NSW, Australia State Government Transport agency
Context
One of Australia’s major cities is in the process of designing a new world class transport system that will radically change how people can engage with the city and play a major role in enabling greener transport choices therefore reducing car dependency.
Across multiple projects, we were engaged to conduct research with customers to inform the design of the entire transport system. The engagement spanned across multiple locations and involved taking a diverse set of customers through the latest designs to understand how it will serve their transport needs and what behaviour changes it may encourage.
The intention of the research was to attain customer feedback early in the design process rather than later when changes to the transportation system would be far more expensive.
Project approach
We ensured there was significant representation from people with accessibility requirements including those with walking assists, prams and wheelchairs, people who are neurodivergent, identify as LGBTQIA+, a range of ages, professions and people with culturally-diverse backgrounds.
The research involved showing participants the designs and seeking their feedback on accessibility, intermodal transfer, safety and security, integration with the local surroundings, amongst other transport specific topics.
Sessions were conducted both in person and remotely. Participants were asked to consider a series of questions while immersed in a 3D model of the designs or VR. The designs were specifically developed for customer testing with features that amplified the experience at different times of the day, such as night and day mode, moving traffic and varying densities of people to represent peak and off peak use. We invited members from the wider design team to the sessions, where they could see firsthand how customers were responding to the designs.
Project outcomes
We were able to inform the wider design team on what could be done to improve the customer experience and ensure that all people were able to access the service and make use of the surrouding area through a detailed set of recommendations and considerations. The recommendations were graded depending on the level of importance. Given there were many of these projects taking place across an extended timeline, the nature of the feedback changed as the designs began to reflect the feedback from customers.
Due to NDA’s, I am unable to share the deliverables here.
Context
One of Australia’s major cities is in the process of designing a new world class transport system that will radically change how people can engage with the city and play a major role in enabling greener transport choices therefore reducing car dependency.
Across multiple projects, we were engaged to conduct research with customers to inform the design of the entire transport system. The engagement spanned across multiple locations and involved taking a diverse set of customers through the latest designs to understand how it will serve their transport needs and what behaviour changes it may encourage.
The intention of the research was to attain customer feedback early in the design process rather than later when changes to the transportation system would be far more expensive.
Project approach
We ensured there was significant representation from people with accessibility requirements including those with walking assists, prams and wheelchairs, people who are neurodivergent, identify as LGBTQIA+, a range of ages, professions and people with culturally-diverse backgrounds.
The research involved showing participants the designs and seeking their feedback on accessibility, intermodal transfer, safety and security, integration with the local surroundings, amongst other transport specific topics.
Sessions were conducted both in person and remotely. Participants were asked to consider a series of questions while immersed in a 3D model of the designs or VR. The designs were specifically developed for customer testing with features that amplified the experience at different times of the day, such as night and day mode, moving traffic and varying densities of people to represent peak and off peak use. We invited members from the wider design team to the sessions, where they could see firsthand how customers were responding to the designs.
Project outcomes
We were able to inform the wider design team on what could be done to improve the customer experience and ensure that all people were able to access the service and make use of the surrouding area through a detailed set of recommendations and considerations. The recommendations were graded depending on the level of importance. Given there were many of these projects taking place across an extended timeline, the nature of the feedback changed as the designs began to reflect the feedback from customers.
Due to NDA’s, I am unable to share the deliverables here.