Purpose
The following design was created as part of the project for Horizon Railways. Horizon Railways is a growing passenger railroad company that is expanding their routes to other parts of the country. The goal of this project is to bring modern solutions to the company’s users by bringing their paper tickets into the digital space using a smartphone-based digital wallet app. For the company, 3 user-centric mockups of e-ticket designs were created. The target audience consists of young tech-savvy travelers, aged 19 -30, who want an efficient and convenient digital experience that is easy to access imperative information so they can have a seamless travel experience. These mockups were created on Figma. Figma is a great tool to create mockups easily, preview the prototypes on mobile screens, and share with colleagues for critics. Figma brings the most value during the Explore and Materialize phases of the user-centered design process as described in the Nielsen Norman Group model of design thinking. Anthony Conta in his book “The Art and Science of UX Design”, illustrates the NN/g model with the Ideate, Prototype, Test, and Implement steps under these phases. With Figma this project was turned into interactive prototypes where user-testing feedback results can be quickly revised in the layout in real-time. To be effective these designs need to show the user the information they need to access their train promptly.
Design Rationale
Principles of UI were used to improve the UX of this design. Designs were created so that clickable items were scaled large enough for users to click on mobile devices with their thumbs. For this project, 3 mockups were created and each has a new color palette for the company to use that expands on their current paper ticket. The color palettes align with the target audience’s preferences of modern, tech-savvy. A typographical hierarchy was created to organize and show importance for the user. Each mock-up needed to include a clear indicator for the user whether Wi-Fi is available on the train picked and needed a clear indicator for the user of where on the train their seat is. Having an accent color for the user’s seat was the most effective and was the best option which improved the UX. This project shows skills in layout and publication design. It is a human-centered design where the layout demonstrates clear alignment with user personas, while prioritizing high-readability and an intuitive information architecture. These high-fidelity mockups clearly incorporate all original ticket details alongside the new seat layout and Wi-Fi indicators seamlessly.
