Redesign Interface of Taipei Metro Ticket Machine
Project Overview
Background of study: As the oldest and largest metro system in Taiwan, Taipei Metro serves about 2 millions passengers daily. Also, several routes or stations are planned to added to the network. Couple months ago, Taipei Metro have launched a new version of ticket machine recently and applied it to one of the station to test its performance and the design receives many complaints about the usability problems. Therefore, I think that I can re-design the interface of ticket machine and make it more user-friendly.
Project Goal: Redesign the interface of ticket machine which make users complete the tasks effortlessly.
Brief Intro of Taipei Metro Ticket machine
There’re three functions of this ticket machine:
Purchasing single-journey tickets
Recharging the EasyCard
Purchasing and storing the all pass ticket in the EasyCard.
— Taipei Metro Ticket machine
In this project, I decide to focus on purchasing single-journey ticket and redesign the latest version of the interface.
Qualitative research
By virtue of limited of time, I collect the opinions from the comments on Taipei Metro’s facebook page and related articles or posts. Apart from other’s opinions, my experience on using it is took in to consideration.
Issues about the latest version of interface that are brought up:
1. At the new version of the interface, the images should be remained to help users identify the functions.
2. Better not to break one word into two lines.
3. Users would misunderstand that those instructions are the actual buttons which can be selected.
4. The shape of the button should be identical with the shape of the buttons above. And it’s better to add “1” button for the number of tickets selection to avoid hesitation.
5. The button should have same border-radius for the consistency of the whole design.
Other issues: It’s hard to look up fares on the route map because the writing is too small and the glare interferes with users’ vision.
Use Case
I start with mapping out the general process of purchasing a single-journey ticket from the existing ticket machine. From this use case, we can see that it’s important to have a clear signposts in the interface which can smoothly lead users to complete the task.
Persona
I create this persona to represent the major needs that I want to solve. No matter what age groups or occupations the users are, most of them would face similar obstacles when purchasing ticket. Users who frequently use public transport in Taiwan seldom buy single journey ticket because they use EasyCard. Therefore, they’re actually unfamiliar with the buying process.
Storyboard
The storyboard visually reveals the process of purchasing a single-journey ticket from my version of ticket machine. Aside from digital touch screen interface, the route map is moved from the top of the machine to the right side of the machine so that users can look the price up easily.
Solutions
Put the images to the navigation button.
Keep the button styles consistent.
Add the checkout button. Users can make sure if they select the correct options before checkout.
Add two instructional pages for the clear visual confirmation which avoid users feeling unsure after inserting the cash.
Utilize color contrast tool to examine the interface to ensure the good accessibility to people with vision problems.
