UX Research and Ideation

Improving Granville Skytrain station, with plausible and calculated changes.

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About the Project

This project was done as a part of an assignment during my time at Vancouver Film School, it is not associated with Translink and is an independent study. The main objective was to find out the experience of public transport for new visitors to the area.

  • We decided to do our ethnographic research study on Granville Skytrain station in Vancouver, BC to figure out how the experience of public transport is for new visitors to the station. We chose Granville station as it’s one of the busiest stations located in the heart of downtown.

  • In the four person team, I took on the role of Researcher, I helped strategize our research methods and analyzed data to come up with information and create findings.

  • We started off the study with an ethnographic research study, followed by conducting google surveys to gather more data.

  • We created solutions for the pain points we encountered, including UI changes for kiosks , signage changes and other potential solutions.

The Team

  • Aurobind Venu

    Researcher, UI Designer

  • Heena Yoon/@heena_rchive

    Illustrator, Designer

  • Karishma Etong/@karishdoesmotion

    Illustrator, Designer

  • Tanya Shah/@tee_ess96

    Researcher, UI Designer

We began by underlining our vision, mission and team statement to provide clarity for ourselves moving ahead with the project.

  • Dedicated to creating and sustaining a transportation system that meets the needs of customers, residents, businesses, and goods movers in a way that protects the environment and supports the economic and social objectives of the region.

  • The issues were evident, but not detrimental, our main aim was to make life easier for people who are new to Vancouver. Because they are the ones who suffer the most.

Primary Pain Points

(based on Ethnographic Study and User Interviews)

  • The station had too many impulse stores and signs which made it harder for new users to find relevent signages and directions.

  • The station had very few really steep escalators and the elevators were not easily findable.

  • The station has very misleading signs, that a lot of users who are new to Vancouver mentioned was too confusing for them.

  • The Compass card stations does not communicate the rates well, the UI is also pretty confusing and overall a confusing experience for the user.

  • There is usually no ground support in the stations to help new users, this forces users to follow the herd and not get accustomed to the experience.

Research Findings

Based on Ethnographic Research, Interviews and surveys send out on Google Forms
“When I first came to the station, I did not know what to do, so I just followed the herd and ended up in the wrong station”
— A tourist from Japan we interviewed.
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell which direction the specific train you’re on is going relative to the route shown on the maps.”
— International Student from Pakistan

Ideating Solutions

After we had our initial Research done and the data sorted. We began ideating potential solutions. Starting off with identifying a roadmap from the current flow and then creating the ideal flow.

Ideal and Current User Roadmaps

Persona’s and Experience Illustrations

Final Solutions

  • We decided to transform the signage to make it easier to understand for new users, Instead of using complicated language and icons we decided to go with simple iconography and language, while still aligning with the branding guidelines.

  • We identified the pain points of the kiosks, and added the ability to use multiple languages - while also creating the feature to show a navigation guide for moving around the station.

  • Even though the escalator is out of the scope of design, we decided to create a simple solution to help improve the escalator experience.

  1. Updated Signage Mockups

2. Updated Kiosk Interface

The Major changes we included are:

  1. Included a lot more language options, considering Vancouver is a very international community, it makes sense to showcase the content in multiple languages.

  2. Included Information screen about the “Zones” which a lot of users complained about being too confusing, as if it is not communicated properly users could lose a lot of money through the zones.

  3. Included an information screen about the Compass cards as well, as a lot of users did not know about things like Auto Top Up and Concession cards.

  4. Included a navigation screen where users can use street view to see where to exit from, as the station has multiple exits and is quite co

Final Analysis

The End

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