A friend of mine had just arrived late for some afterwork drinks. He was frozen solid from the Chicago winter, and was angry because his bus never showed up. His transportation app hadn't worked properly and it left him out to freeze, literally. His frustration had inspired him to build something better.
So, we set out to create something that would help Chicagoans arrive at the station just in time for their train: a transportation app with a better timing mechanism than the others on the market.
Avoiding this.
And this.
Talking to cold people
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We decided to get a gut check on whether this would be something people would actually want to use. After talking to 22 people on different train platforms, bus stations, and tram stops in three different cities, I found that, yes–people wanted to know when their transportation is really going to show up, instead of looking at apps or sites that displayed a static schedule. So, my friend and I kicked off a little side-hustle project.
Information Architecture & Algorithm Ideas
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Together we envisioned an algorithm that would use trains, buses, etc. wifi signal to more accurately predict a train or bus' arrival times. Then my partner went on to build it.
After the initial guerrilla-research was done and we had a solid idea for predicting arrival times, I put together some wireframes, flows & interaction notes and development began.
Visual Design & Launch
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After creating several iterations of the visual designs, we settled on a version that used icons that mirrored the look and feel of each train, bus, or tram line, to allow for quick recognition when scrolling through the list of different modes, lines, and stops. Voila! An app was born.
In the end, our go-to-market strategy ended up being a bit weak, and we didn't get the traction we wanted. We both ended up learning a lot along the way about how to build a product from scratch – what worked best and what didn't.
We've since removed the app from the App Store due to the lack of traction. But in this case, learning how not to do something helped me better understand what the right steps are to launching a successful product.
Check Out Some Other Projects
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