.png)
TAP LA is an app used by commuters in the LA Area to navigate their routes on public transit and help them pay for their fare by uploading funds to their TAP card. Released in 2021, the TAP LA app was meant to help commuters board public transit hands-free to limit the spread of Covid-19, however it fails to address the real issues of health and physical safety that people are concerned with. As we head into a post-pandemic lifestyle, we wanted to redesign the TAP LA app to address these concerns and help ridership return to pre-pandemic levels.
Timeline: 3 weeks
My Role: UX Research, Wireframing, Prototyping
Scope: redesigned existing pages for efficiency and extended features to address health and safety concerns of commuters.
We started with the issues of rising gas prices due to the war between Ukraine and Russia and how we could help people save money. Research indicated ridership of public transport is still below pre-pandemic levels due to concerns about physical and health safety. We pivoted to focus on how we could bring ridership up in the LA area by redesigning the TAP LA app. How might we improve the app to ease these concerns of commuters regarding physical and hygienic safety on public transportation to help them ride with confidence and bring ridership back to pre-pandemic levels?
In addition to redesigning the existing app interface for more efficient navigation and usage, we added health protocol information and weekly updates as well as a universally accessible safety feature called SafeRide Mode, which allows commuters to contact the nearest security personnel or law enforcement if they feel unsafe. Redesigning the Tap app to include these safety measures on public transportation in the Los Angeles area will help user feel safer while taking public transportation and lead to an increase ridership back to pre-pandemic levels.
Ridership on public transportation significantly dropped in early 2020 due to the pandemic. Since then it has steadily increased, but still is not quite at the level it used to be despite the progression back to a pre-pandemic lifestyle (Bureau of Transportation).
We create a survey as a follow-up to our initial market research. We targeted individuals living in cities with a public transport system.
We interviewed (6) ideal users and analyzed the data using Miro. When asked about one thing they would want to fix about public transportation, we were surprised by the overwhelming responses citing physical and health safety.
We referenced reviews left in the app store and interviewed current users to understand usability issues with the app.
After collecting feedback about the TAP LA app, we redlined the three main pages to understand specific problems that were contributed to cited issues.
.png)
Once we had an idea of our target user, we organized the features we wanted to prioritize.
Physical safety was something that we really wanted to focus on. As a result, we designed a new safety feature, which well call SafeRide Mode, with the follow user flow.
.png)
.png)
A round of usability testing on our clickable wireframe revealed that there were still issues involving the visibility of the Covid-19 information and the new SafeRide Mode.
To keep inline with the brand, we referenced the original style guide, iterating on the existing color scheme to refine the contrast ratio for better accessibility and visibility.
We also pulled inspiration from existing apps for the cards page, initially drawing from the Starbucks app format in our wireframe before deciding to lean more on the design used in the PayPal app. We also looked at existing safety apps, such as Noonlight, which influenced the structure our new safety feature.
We ultimately decided to remove the homepage altogether because it was largely redundant and seldomly used, which allowed us to focus on the card page and Triptools page for our redesign. We also wanted to include an apple watch version of our new physical safety feature, which we called SafeRide Mode, for the convenience and discretion of our users.
Based on the feedback, we iterated on our design for our final prototype to include general health protocol information more visibly on the main card page. Once we added color to the interface, we made sure that the SafeRide Mode button was more distinguishable using variants of a bright green color. Finally, we changed the label of “safety agent” to specifically refer to “security personnel/law enforcement”.
Most people like to be doing other things on their phone while on their commute such as listening to music, checking emails, etc. We prototyped an apple watch version of SafeRide Mode for better convenience and discretion.
Due to the time constraint, we were not able to thoroughly develop our new SafeRide Mode feature. However, we are confident in the product we were able to produce in the short amount of time given. We hope to have the opportunity to work with Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in providing a better transit experience for the citizens of Los Angeles County.
