I had the opportunity to participate in a group project in which we observed, collected and analyzed data, and re-designed user experiences regarding train travel during the Covid-19 pandemic. I was fortunate enough to be part of a group where half of us were located in Syracuse, NY, while the other half were located in Shenzhen, China. Our main goal was to identify the pain points associated with train travel during the pandemic and work on creating a human-centered alternative to reduce the stress of travel.
Passenger railroads are the back bone of many countries infrastructure. They allow people in the community to easily navigate from city to city while still being quite affordable. Over time, select train stations have become tourist attractions that bring in millions of visitors and travelers every year. The Covid-19 lockdown crippled the ability for individuals to commute through train stations and on the trains themselves. We took this pain point and conducted research, analyzed the data, and designed improvements around how we could make train travel safe again during and after the pandemic.
General Concourse in Syracuse, NY Train Station
The first thing we did after being assigned this project was define the scope of the project and determine what the areas of interest were. In the beginning we had considered adding subways and metro stations into part of the research but soon realized that would require completely different data and outcomes. Focusing on strictly train stations allowed us to more clearly identify and define our research.
General Concourse in Shenzhen, China Train Station
Once we had figured out what our scope of research was going to entail, we shifted focus to curating questions that would help us map out the areas of improvement. we were also very fortunate to have two different countries involved in our research. The population that uses train travel in the United States is substantially smaller than the ones in China. This allowed for us to make better decisions and think on an international level opposed to strictly domestic. With these factors in mind, there were two questions that stood out:
What can be done to improve traveller’s safety at train stations during and beyond the Covid-19 outbreak?
Is there any correlation between people’s perception regarding their safety at stations and train usage frequency.
Questions like these helped guide us through the research process and allowed for a hypothesis to be formulated regarding solutions to improve train stations.
Main Platform at Syracuse, NY Train Station
Data Collection
A summary of our groups data collection process and methodology.
Data Driven Hypotheses
A brief look into the data our group collected from surveys and how we interpret it in order to formulate our first hypotheses.
Hypotheses Validation
An introduction to the concept of hypothesis validation
Design & Sketching Process
An overview of our ideation process to develop potential features to be implemented based on our hypotheses.
User Stories
An overview of the 5 story boards our group created to illustrate the proposed features to the participants.
Validation Process
An overview as to how our group validated the hypothesis.
Validation Analysis
A summary of the feedback our group received from participants during the storyboard walkthroughs based on our questions.
Final Proposals
A refined and final user story to illustrate the core features that our group is proposing.