Overview
In the summer of 2012, I went to Vienna for my Bachelor internship with a company RISE. Did two small projects in a team of designers and developers; a tablet application adapted from an existing information system web app, and a railway ticketing mobile app from scratch. Both were tested for usability, and performed well.
Keywords: Interaction design, Usability testing, Information systems.
Vienna airport information system
Challenge
Ground level airport personnel like Ramp agents tend to work on-the-move, and have different work positions and operations at hand. They use an aiport information system which keeps them informed of their next task, next position, and demands them to input information.
For instance, to correctly and timely ensure that landing sites are available for incoming aircrafts, and to input data after finishing a task was done from a desktop in their booth. Use of desktop application wasn't optimal for a mobile job. RISE gave us an assignment to design a tablet application based on the web app, and test it for most critical tasks.
Design outcome
Re-designed an information dense web-app to a tablet-app; optimized for efficiency of time critical information retrieval (e.g., incoming airplane landing site), and error-free actions (e.g., confirmation of site availability).
Design process included interviewing experts, gaining requirements, getting feedback on wireframes, and conducting usability testing with experts. Delivered wireframes, a non-functional prototype with future recommendations.
Key design principles and examples
- Maintain consistency with the existing web-app: keep spatial placement of information and features similar
- For risky tasks, prioritize error prevention over speed: do not auto-fill flight numbers, ask for confirmation
- Make relevant information accessible: even though lots of features need to be directly accessible, highlight the task-specific ones
Railway ticketing app
Challenge
Design a generic (for Europe) railway ticketing application for
smartphones; for intra-country and inter-country travel, and to include features which provide a holistic experience.
Design outcome
Iteratively designed a concept app with must-have features like price comparison, payment page that gains trust, real-time train status. Travel guide was an additional feature that would allow for seamless travel experience with transportation guides, car hires, city maps with key landmarks, etc.
The design process included Competitive Analysis with 6 similar applications of different European regions, feature prioritization, creating Information Architecture, low-fi prototyping using Balsamiq, and usability testing with experts for formative evaluation.
