Service Design | Interaction Design | Research | Prototyping | User Testing

This is a service design project for the Topics in Advance Interaction Design course at the University of Baltimore. The topic for this project is mobility.

As a group, we designed a new multi-touchpoint service that identifies an observed issue or opportunity in Mobility and explored physical-digital hybrid services that we used for prototyping.

Problem statement:

Users want to bike because it’s environmentally friendly and good for their health, but they don’t feel safe on roads because there aren’t enough bike lanes separated from cars.

How might we help users use biking as a way to contribute to bike lane development?

We first created several personas to help us develop a journey map.

As well as an accompanying service blueprint.

We then created both low and high-fidelity prototypes.

We tested our idea and design with users by walking them through our storyboard and showing them the prototypes. The general agreement is that the advocacy group’s mission is a worthy cause. Everyone agrees that using the apps would be beneficial, both together and separately. The kinks in our design do not necessarily lie with the service design. The obstacles we foresee taking place are with the redemption of miles.

Our first significant finding is that even with the philanthropist attitude that our users had, truthfully not everyone will want to donate their miles if they can redeem their miles for something of monetary value instead. People would rather receive something than nothing. 

Our second significant finding is that it may be mutually beneficial to have the city or local government match the donations. Realistically, the donations would have to scale to a high level to make any difference. It would take a long time for the donations of already limited users to make a real impact. With local assistance with the program, injuries and fatalities would decrease, and public safety and trust will increase.

Our third significant finding poses an excellent question: What if certain users use the apps but never take any action on their miles? While users may be intrigued by the program, they may only download one or both apps for the safety and health benefits they provide. If miles are not being redeemed or rewarded, change cannot happen.