CyRide for Smartwatch

Reimagining a college transit app for a more convenient and accessible device.

Introduction

CyRide is Iowa State University’s public transit system, supporting not only the college campus but greater Ames as well. MyState, Iowa State’s mobile application, provides a digital interface for CyRide, allowing users to get useful and important information regarding the buses, like schedules, routes, and bus locations.

While the current design of the experience is sufficient, there are many areas where it could be improved. This projects aims to address the problems that users expressed, as well as format a new experience for the Apple Watch.

Goals

  1. Research and identify user problems with the existing user experience through user research.

  2. Brainstorm solutions to meet the desired outcome and develop low-fidelity wireframes.

  3. Engage in expert and heuristic analysis to identify major and minor problems early on in the production process.

  4. Create high-fidelity prototypes and conduct scientific usability testing to determine if our chosen solution actually addressed the problems we sought to solve.

My Role

My role during this project was primarily the UI and Visual Designer, but I also had a small part to play in the research side of it, such as using my Psychology background to provide critical feedback on the user research process.

Research

Initial Research

All UX design work for this project was done in Figma. The wireframes were built on the layout sketched for the paper wireframes, and an early idea of the information organization that was established. The low-fidelity prototype was used in a round of light user testing to get feedback on major ideas, rather than design aspects.

Figma Prototype