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Providing a better user experience for Rio's public transport kiosks

The context

Riocard is a private company that provides electronic smartcards used to pay for public transport in the Rio de Janeiro state.

The smartcards can be used to take the bus, metro, train, etc. and are sold at the brand's stores or from kiosks at selected stations. Users can also top them up on the mobile app, the website or the kiosks.

They hired a design agency because they wanted to improve the system and ergonomics of their kiosks.

The challenge

This is where I came in, to conduct research for Riocard Mais and identify opportunities for improvements in the interaction of the users with the kiosks.

So some of the general goals we had were to:

Understand how people use the kiosks, their gestures and attitude, mood, etc

What do they do? Do they top up their cards with cash or card? How do they go about it?

What difficulties do they have? and how do they try to solve them?

The process

Desk research

With that in mind, I obviously had to start with some desk research for a deep dive into the context and better understand what we already knew, our hypotheses and questions.

Through a CSD (Certainties, Assumptions and Questions, in Portuguese) matrix, we listed what we were certain about, our assumptions and the questions we needed to answer through research.

Reviews and complaints on Reclame Aqui, an important Brazilian website for complaints against companies about customer service, purchase, sale, products and services.

General information about the client, the brand, its mission and goals, etc.

Benchmarking

I analysed direct (and indirect) competitors to study and verify market trends and raise ideas for possible ways to innovate and add value to the project. The players mentioned by stakeholders were analysed to identify new trends, references, best practices and opportunities.

Players from other sectors and markets that could be used as inspiration for the project were also analysed. Furthermore, I did a competitive analysis to gain insights into what they offer to the clients.

Through benchmarking similar solutions such as London's Oyster Card, New York's Metrocard, Toronto's PRESTO, Paris' Navigo and ATMs from other segments, I identified industry standards, best practices and opportunities.

Heuristic and usability analysis

The preliminary analyses of heuristics and usability helped me get a picture of some of the main issues with the current system and come up with some hypotheses.

Many screens didn't pass on contrast tests, presenting texts that could be unreadable for many people.

The system generally lacked consistency in elements and assets

Stakeholder interviews

Field research

Ethnography

User interviews

Usability tests

Now what?

We are still in the final stages of this research, as soon as we have results of its impact, I will share here 😄

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