PUBLIC TRANSPORT VICTORIA
2020 ROADMAP
“BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, IT MIGHT JUST COME TRUE”
― Yiddish Parable
It was 2016. We’d just sailed back from Tasmania across Bass Strait. As I rode to a briefing of my first day back after 6 weeks of calculated decision making navigating ‘the Strait’, it turned that out seeking a coffee and a ‘pain-au-chocolat’ on one of Melbourne’s busy cafe strips was a poor calculation. As I hit the bonnet, then windscreen of the car I knew this was bad…
In a convoluted way, a tram driver was ultimately to blame for my broken shoulder… two days later when I painfully made the briefing, low and behold it was mapping the functionality for Public Transport Victoria’s desperately needed web renovation. The cut a thrust of this first sprint was to equip PTV with not only the core functionality of what they should be providing users, but a pitch to the state government parliament as to how and why the people of Victoria needed it. As a recently disabled, new to public transport user, I was well suited to the challenge. Tasked singlehandedly (yep, I was in a sling) with distilling the user needs from a wide body of research and feedback, to producing and communicating a roadmap, that was successfully pitched, which is what you see here now: The https://beta.ptv.vic.gov.au/ . Whilst I was grateful for the opportunity the whole ‘method actor: disabled public transport user persona’ bit was perhaps going a little too far.
TAGS: SOLUTION DESIGN / APTITUDE TESTING / USER EXPERIENCE / LOGIC MAPPING / INTERFACE DESIGN / RESEARCH
FUTURE PROOFING
I’ve found that one of the biggest challenges in the web tech field is convincing the product / service providers what the ‘really’ users need. If the scope is for a four year phased roll-out, the role is to put robust functionality forward, in light of all the tech prospecting and aptitude proof you can muster. It all starts with trust. And this is how this is project is phased. Do a good job of the basics, then people trust your service and have confidence to ‘step closer’, create a user account at which point you can really double down providing smart utility to peoples lives. In this case, knowing the coming and going, daily or weekly routines of a users movements enables the product to ‘smart’ up its respons. In this case in the form of alerts around delays, changes to service with suggested alternatives. And good stuff like events and services in the users area / commute.
RABBIT HOLES
Expanding out the service and then refining it using existing user data gave us a structure to deliver through. The logic flow above was how the exercise was formulated. It’s redundant now due to all the waves of iterative adjustment that have taken place, but the basic plan remains. Each functional step is in itself a rabbit hole of rigour and integration so this won’t all be happening overnight.
NOW LETTER BOX IT!
Given that the overwhelming and ever growing majority of users will access this platform via smartphone, the interface design challenges compound. Providing a practical suite of intuitive interaction will be the biggest obstacle moving forward. Scalable functionality ‘letter-boxed’, not easy.