Overview:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is North America’s largest transportation network, serving a population of 15.3 million people across a 5,000-square-mile travel area surrounding New York City through Long Island, southeastern New York State, and Connecticut. The MTA’s operating agencies are MTA New York City Transit, MTA Bus, Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, and MTA Bridges and Tunnels.

Objective:

The aim of this project was to create new software to modernize the MTA's employee communications by creating a secure mobile app that turns cellphones into communication hubs that let them stay connected and do their jobs more efficiently.

Goal: To understand current work communications through research

Process: User interviews, surveys, competitive and comparative analysis.

To understand work-based communication, I created a google survey asking a range of questions my team and I agreed upon such as, employees' most commonly used internal communications, what functioned well and what they would change about them. Our results showed Slack, Zoom, and Teams were the most widely used and that our survey participants wanted more from their work communication apps, including:

• Easy to use

• More security

• Ability to transcribe meetings

• Better interface

• Better organization

• Clear reminders

• Easy chat features

Additionally, our research showed employees use multiple devices, so it became essential that our app worked across all devices.

Competitive Analysis

Based on our above research, each team member picked a business and we put together a list of competitors itemizing their platforms to understand what features each service offered and didn't offer. I did the research for Zoom.

The MTA has approximately 74,000 employees. Sylvee, Research lead II and I followed our survey with four interviews with transit workers. I created a draft of interview questions which the team reviewed and edited. During the interview, I asked the questions and Sylvee recorded the interview on Otter.

Interview Breakdown:

Number of Participants: 4
Gender breakdown: 4 males
Age: 33-50

*All participants work in Transportation; three work for an MTA agency.

Goal: To define the user’s needs, goals, motivations and frustrations based on research findings

Process: Persona | HMW Questions | Problem Statement & Solution

Sylvee, Research lead II and I transcribed our user interview findings, and created notes for affinity mapping (seen below). As a team we then organized the notes based on patterns that emerged. This gave all of us insight into how employees used communication devices and what their pain points are.

Insights

• Privacy is important.

• Radio batteries often die on-site, or they are glitchy

• Some communication apps work best on a desktop and don't translate to cell phones.

• Video communication is confusing underground.

• Sometimes hands are tied when working and can't answer the phone, which is a problem because it's mandatory to answer.

Needs

• Reliable radio

• An app that works across all platforms

• Subtitles on videos

• Handsfree communication options
  

Personas

I drafted two personas to ensure we were solving for both employees who work in the office and on-site. Although we only needed one, I felt two personas would help our team create a more functional app for all MTA employees. Our team then edited and refined the personas. Our primary persona, Hank, works off-site, which can be underground in the tunnels. Our secondary persona Remy works primarily in the office.

POV Statements & HMW Questions

Next, I re-framed the insights and needs from the user interviews as Point-of-View statements and How-Might-We questions. In doing this, I was able to help our team define the problem and allow us to ideate more solutions for our communications app.

All of the research that was completed lead to the problem statement, which allowed us to begin ideating our app.

“Hank needs a secure way to access different modes of communication easily at work so that he can complete his field tasks efficiently and respond to communications from coworkers in timely manner. “

Goal: To develop concepts for potential solutions based on research insights

Process: Group Brainstorming | User Flows

Group Brainstorming

Each group member iterated what they thought the app might look like. Then, as a group, we reviewed each sketch and together created a vague idea of how the app might look. After the team made a collective decision on the apps MVPs’ we broke them into five userflows to be created by each member. I created the userflow for MYRA (MY Recognition Assistant) a voice recognition software to be used hands free.

Goal: To design and integrate the UI of a communications app for MTA employees

Process: Sketches | Branding l Low-fidelity Wireframes

Sketches

MTAlk’s original design was a fixed header and footer navigation with the contact and group divided with a carousel and a dropdown. However, I pushed for making our app ADA compliant by removing content that would have been hidden by the carousels and dropdown. Then Linda and Brenda, the Interaction Leads came up with pinning contacts and groups to the home page.

Branding

Jonathan our Project Manager created a mood board of MTA apps like MYmta and OMNY as well as maps and photos of city transportation.

Our Project Manager Jonathan also looked up the MTA design guides, and as a team we decided to stay within the universal design they employ, settling on maintaining the palette used in MYmta and the universal font, Helvetica.

Goal: To develop a model for MTA’s new app that could be evaluated and improved

Process: High-Fidelity Wireframes | Usability Testing

Highlights:

• View contacts and make calls

• Send text and photo messages

• Use radio feature

• Use MYRA voice assistant feature

• Save messages to bookmarks

Usability testing

We tested our prototype on two of our interviewees with a set of multiple tasks.

Pros:

• Users loved the Radio. It was playful and reminded them of "Nextel" which had a radio feature.

• Users thought that MTAlk was easy to use and intuituve

• Users understood MYRA was like a Siri / Google voice assistant / Microsoft paper clip

Cons:

• Users had trouble finding the MYRA icon on the top right. Sometimes it was unclear if "enable Myra" was turning on myra or setting up Myra. On the settings page some users were unsure when given directives to turn Myra off, to use the toggle, or icon on top right corner.

• Noticed delay on the home page. One user thought it was an ad, didn't realize it was a button until further notice. Users treated it as a clickable button vs a slide to side.

• Users found button to translate unclear or didn't recognize it as a button. Thought it was part of the conversation thread.

Goal: To assess how well the prototype meets users’ needs and goals

Process: Revised Prototype

Based on our the information from our user testing we made the following corrections. We indicated when a message has not been read yet, emphasized the see translation button, so it would be more visible and lastly added on onboarding walk-through for MYRA (MY Recognition Assistant).

Project Takeaways

Testing is key:

A significant revelation from usability testing was MYRA’s on boarding. My findings corrected my assumption about what users would think MYRA is. Before the three-step setup prompt, users didn’t understand MYRA, what it was or how to use it and our research showed that inaccessible features were easily forgotten even if they could be beneficial. Our testing made it evident that the effectiveness of a design or feature is ultimately determined by the people who use it.

Next Steps

• More focus on ADA compliance, color, translations and subtitles

• Additional MYRA on boarding testing

• Do more research on how the employees on the field could use this app without problems.

• Build a directory contact page with all contacts from all six agencies.

• Build a secure location sharing features.

*This was a General Assembly class project.