Reimagining transportation in Lagos — A Not as boring Product Design Case study.

This is a mobile application, that I designed to reinvent the way people interact with modern mobile applications and reduce traffic congestion in Lagos.

So how did this all begin?

The idea for Route started with a conversation with my mum in the kitchen after Governor Sanwo-Olu unveiled buses for a massive transport scheme, which got us thinking, “could this actually work?”, “would this heinous Lagos traffic be a thing of the past?”, “when would the rice finish cooking?” and more important things like that.

Frankly, the idea that a bus transit system could revolutionize traffic congestion and transport in Lagos was a very interesting and challenging concept to me, so I decided to give it a go(because I really had nothing better to do)and design an application for people dealing with this problem on a daily basis.

• Disclaimer: I am not a Lagosian and I rarely stay in Lagos so if I get somethings wrong, forgive and correct please.

Also, if you’re like me and you don't really care for reading research parts of case studies, just scroll down till you see the interaction design section 👍🏼.

Now for the people who stayed,

I approached my research in 3 stages,

1. Social research(to understand why Lagos has so much traffic in the first place)
2. Market research(to understand the many gaps in the public transportation system)
3. User research(to understand what the users really needed).

As someone who has only tasted a teaspoon of Lagos traffic, my research process was highly exploratory, ;I had to clear my earlier notion of how people dealt with traffic and traffic itself, before I started to learn in detail about the Lagos transport system.

One of the first things I learnt when I started social research was that TRAFFIC CONGESTION IS HERE TO STAY, Yep, there’s no one fits all solution hiding somewhere, apparently its a very important part of industrialization and even despite the poor planning of Lagos’ transportation system we’d still never escape traffic.

Peak-hour traffic congestion in almost all large and growing metropolitan regions around the world is here to stay. In fact, it is almost certain to get worse during at least the next few decades, mainly because of rising populations and wealth. This will be true no matter what public and private policies are adopted to combat congestion -brookingsedu

However, there are many ways we can manage and control traffic congestion in ways that are ultimately beneficial to people. A few of them include

1. Development and Support for Intermodality (Sea and train transportation )
2. Centralization and proper management
3. Heavy business involvement in transport system.
4. Incentivizing diverse roads and routes
5. Encouraging usage of public transport infrastructure over private transportation.

Because I’m not a policy maker(yet), I decided to only focus on number 4 and 5 because they were more feasible to implement in an application without involving public policy, maybe if I have more free time we’ll tackle 1, 2 and 3🤷🏼‍♀️

me if I actually decide to tackle 1, 2 and 3 with design

For my market research, I posted a google form survey on twitter to understand users preferences and priorities with public transportation and also to identify gaps that aren't being filled in the market. After getting user feedback(from only 30 people), I made an inference from the results by identifying that people use informal travel in informal environments(when going to a friends place or to buy fish and use formal travel in formal environments (people going to work and restaurants).

This is a gap for transport providers like Bolt and Uber(which are more formal means of public transportation) because they aren't catering to people who want to go to longer distances and informal distances.

Now this is where I come in 😌

Okay wait, before we get to that, lets go over user research a bit, the whole aim of user research was to get into the head of the average public transport user in Lagos, what do they like?, what do they really hate? have they ever been robbed on public transport ? idk let’s find out ;)

After interviewing users, I noticed two types of user behavior's when it came to choosing public transport, which I took the liberty of naming and segregating into street users and soft users.

Spectrum of User Behavior

Street Users had a very different behavior from softer users when it came to choosing public transport, they basically just used any medium that fit the situation and timing whether it was a bus or a bike or bolt. They knew the ways to navigate traffic and avoid getting mugged as much as possible. The average street users biggest concern is,

“How might I spend as little money as possible to get to where I'm going”

— Daniel, the average street user.

While the Softer users (people like me) only used 2 things, private transport and bolt/uber, anything else was almost out of the question. They don't really care for price(because they’re probably not the one paying) so you could say they have high price inelasticity when it comes to choosing public transport. The normal soft users biggest concern is usually

“How might I try my best to avoid getting kidnapped while getting to where I'm going”

— Loba, the average soft user.

soft users after spending 8k on one bolt ride

Also, Both types of users both almost equally valued comfort and speed so there wasn't much distinction in those areas.

To solve both of their problems in the way that satisfies any user on the spectrum, I decided to make an application that gives users as many transportation choices(with different costs) as possible to allow street users to have a wide array of prices to choose from, I also decided to make a way for softer users to use public transport(not bolt/uber) and feel safe, secure and comfortable.

You can read more about the itty gritty research details here.

The summary of solutions identified from my research are

1. incentivizing diverse roads and routes(social research)
2. Improving public transport to encourage a shift from public to private transportation (social research)
3. Catering to the needs of people who want to go to longer distances and informal distances(market research)
4. Prioritizing safety, comfort and transparency of public transport to make softer users more comfortable with public transport (User research)
5. Allowing users to have multiple transportation choices with different costs.(User research)

Now what’s the big solution to all these problems?

A centralized, dynamic bus-car transit system, that's what.

This is where Route comes in, it’s an application that generates multiple routes to a destination and allows you to book drivers along your route. There are 2 types of routes that users can book which are full routes and broken routes.

Full routes only involve one medium of transport, which means the users gets from point A to point B using a bus or a car. This allows softer users to feel comfortable booking buses to informal destinations.

An example of a full route

Broken routes, however lets you get from point A to C using different stops like point A to B with a bus and Point B to C with a car. Broken routes are ultimately cheaper than full routes and are quicker and dynamic. This lets users going for longer journeys minimize cost and allows street users to have diverse(cheaper) options to get to their destinations.

An example of a broken route

Route also prioritizes users safety and comfort by verifying every driver and using accountability systems to ensure compliance to safety regulations and standards. If you’re using a bus, route lets you know each member of the bus and allows you to share route and location details with friends and family.

Softer users can also view the car model and driver ratings before selecting a drivers available to maximize their comfort (although drivers with better car models might charge higher 🤷🏼‍♀️).

A view of drivers and their car models

Route lets you choose and select alternative routes, especially in surge hours that can get you to where you want to go faster. Thus, it incentives diverse routes to reduce traffic congestion in major roads in peak hours.

stacked route screen

Now, For the Fun Part, The Visual and Interaction Design.

When I was done with my research, the next thing I wanted to do was figure out the visual design for route.

There are 3 things I wanted to do with routes visual and interaction design,

1. Challenge the traditional mobile application design and interactions (which I’ve found to be quite boring and lazy nowadays)
2. Create a user flow that allows users to easily book routes on the go. I wanted the interface and interactions to be as fluid and fast as possible to keep users in the loop and minimize what I like to call interstitial friction.

Interstitial friction (in UX) is a term I use to define the friction between what a user intends to do and what they actually do. This can happen because of poor user flow design, outside distractions and displaying unwanted information - basically anything that disrupts the users flow of thought when using an application.

3. Lastly, I wanted to challenge Myself to create something unique and innovative in a world of repetitive design and short lived design trends. This was inspired by the work of my favorite designer, Jason Yuan and an initiative made by studio family.

Now let’s get to it.

Builds on Demand

Route’s design is something like a Generative interface, meaning it builds the interface based on demand so instead of attacking the user with too much information when first opening the app, it first asks the question “where do you want to go?” “what do you want?” which in my opinion, transfers power back to the user.

Instead of giving the user multiple options to choose from at once or making navigate to find where to start booking routes. Users can just start their journey immediately after opening the application.

Users after being given too many options on a home screen 😜

Users can also choose to pin favorite routes and save unfinished routes to save time but otherwise, the home screen is left empty, waiting for user input.

Navigation Bars? Who needs ‘em?

Routes Home screen

I’m sure you’ve already noticed but route doesn't not have a navigation bar like usual mobile applications, this design decision was because I simply did not see the need for it.

A navigation bar nowadays seems like a requirement for good mobile design when it isn't really needed in every case, Routes interface is generative and dynamic so users don't need to bother about navigating when using the app.

Also Users can go back with horizontal swipe interactions.

Text or speech, Whatever you feel like

audio input flow

Users can also choose to type their destinations or use audio input if they are visually disabled or conditionally disabled and the interface will generate various routes to specified destination.

Infinite Scrolling Put into good use

For the routes screens, I adapted the infinite scrolling technique created by Aza Raskin, this was because I wanted the user to fluidly scroll through routes without interrupting their flow of thought. However, I’m aware of the setbacks of the infinite scroll and how addictive it can be, I’m also aware of hicks law about user choices.

Thus, my version of the infinite scroll makes users take a break every 3 to 4 routes and asks “if they are looking for something else?” this allows users to tailor route results to what they need and reminds them that they need to make a decision, not endlessly scroll through routes.

P.s. the generated routes aren't infinite either.

Pancake Stacks🥞

Route stacks

Driver stacks

Yes, you read it correctly, Route has a little interaction I call stacks(pancake stacks). It allows users to view more details routes and drivers without having to navigate to another page. Users can just long press to see more details about any driver they want and long press again to see more details on the stack.

I’m aware that it isn't the most inclusive feature so I made it like a shortcut to see more details quicker when making a decision, users can still navigate properly without using stacks.

Though, I believe in the next few years, if implemented enough, users might get used to stacked interactions enough to make it a form of navigation for an application.

Moving forward

Moving forward, I would love if some of the ideas penned down here were actually put to good use by ride hailing services in Lagos like uber, bolt, shuttlers (maybe they could even hire me too 😉) and I’m also hopeful that it could influence policy designers who have more understanding of Lagos’ transportation system than me to proffer more solutions in alleviating the excessive traffic congestion in Lagos.

Creative minds could take existing public transit infrastructure and create brand-new possibilities that not only curtail a variety of growing problems but provide the capacity for growth for towns, cities, whole states or countries, and beyond.

-Ohio University

There were also limitations to my research, Because I’m stuck in school, most of my user interview participants were restricted to youths and students which could create a biased result, so if you’re interested in pursuing research related to this, a gap would to be to study a wide age range of participants.

As for me, I’m going to continue creating, designing and pondering on ways to solve more problems with design(maybe watching one piece too).

I’d also be continuing my frustrating job search for a company (or team) that values ingenuity and innovation in designers.

You can also view more visual design features on my Behance here.

Till next time.

Loba

Junior Product Designer

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