Escalator Issue | Public transport solution

The Case

UX Design

This project was a fictitious case for a school project in the second year of my Communication and Multimedia Design course. The case was for the subject User Experience Design in which we were first taught about the concept of User Experience. This subject was done in groups of two. We were allowed to choose a subject for the case ourselves as long as it was a social issue of some sort. We choose the Escalator Problem, the problem in which people didn’t follow social norms by standing on the right side of the escalator.

The Brief

Choose a social issue which you could solve with User Experience design. Perform research for the social issue. Think about the target audience, the situation in which the issue happens and how often it occurs. You deliver the following things:

- A research paper consisting of your most important findings

- The research methods used

- A Customer Journey Map

- Personas

- A video in which you show the issue and the solution

The Process

Me and my partner quickly figured out that we wanted to take on the escalator issue. We took inspiration in what other solutions had been tried before such as green and red arrows on the escalator and solutions involving lights. But after a few weeks we figured out that the target audience we were trying to change was too stubborn, too unobservant or uncaring. And above all, the group was too large. Therefore we had the idea to focus on those that benefited from a fast transit instead. We advised a change in the 9292ov app, at the time the most popular public transport app in the Netherlands. The change would allow the target group to see where they would be able to get on the train in order to be the closest to the escalator or staircase when they would arrive at their destination. The end result had to be communicated using a promotional video, which you can watch below. The documentation of this case is also available to read through, this however is exclusively in Dutch. Though we didn’t continue developing this case after we got our grading I think it’s fun to mention that the NS (Dutch Railways) are currently testing a similar feature in their own app.

Process