Group 7: Allan N. S. Larsen (alns@itu.dk), Claudia Delgado (clud@itu.dk), Josefine Land (josl@itu.dk), Pernille M. Skott (pmin@itu.dk), Rachid Jabbar (racj@itu.dk) & Sune L. Hansen (suha@itu.dk)

23.200 characters (including spaces), not including first page, table of content and references.

Interaction DesignSpring 2011Aaron Mullane // Supervisor

Group 7Allan N. S. Larsen // alns@itu.dk) 08.09.1986

Claudia Delgado // clud@itu.dk) 03.10.1988

Josefine Land // josl@itu.dk 23.12.1984

Pernille M. Skott // pmin@itu.dk 14.09.1982

Rachid Jabbar // racj@itu.dk) 04.03.1977

Sune L. Hansen // suha@itu.dk) 15.01.1985

Signatures........................................................................

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Table of Contents

Personas 10

Idea Generation 11First Ideas

Final Idea

Review

Waiting for Godot 15

Usability 17First Usability Testing

Second Usability Testing

Conclusion 23

Further thoughts 24

References 25

Our Process 1

Introduction 2Research Questions

Circle of Trust 3Concept

User Group 5Survey

Focus Group Interview

Reflections upon findings

1

Our Process1

2

This report documents and tells the tale of how our concept The Circle of Trust came to be. As you read it through, you will be introduced to a wide array of different considerations and iterations we made before ending at our final prototype. The report has its main focus upon the actual process and attempts to give an in-depth understanding of it, including challenges, choice of user-group, what methods we used, amongst others.

During the course of four months, we went through a series of stages; formulating our design focus, planning methods for em-pirical data gathering, analysing feedback, designing initial concepts, changing the design focus, choosing one concept and designing it within the design constraints. The concept was then showcased at ITU and, after gaining educated feedback, final changes have been made. We also included thoughts in regards to how the concept might undergo further future develop-ment.

Research QuestionsAre busses in Copenhagen trust-worthy in comparison to their travel schedules?

- What are the factors that cause the bus to deviate from the schedule?

- How can we introduce a social aspect to information precision?

Introduction2

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The Circle of Trust is a system that allows travellers to communicate the whereabouts of a certain bus, in order to supply their co-travellers with precise and correct in-formation. The information is also feed via real-time GPS. This ensures a viable and cooperative approach to diminishing the issue of untrustworthiness in regards to the current bus timetables.

ConceptA person is able to see the whereabouts of a certain bus by either logging in at an info-screen(fig.1) at the bus stop, or by choosing their specific bus via a smart-phone application(fig. 2).

The whereabouts of the bus is illustrated on interactive maps, through the use of the already existing GPS that most busses have. However the GPS does not take into account the aspect of traffic. Therefore, to handle this factor, a social aspect is includ-ed, in which travellers can inform their co-travellers with information of where they have seen the bus.

The user uses shout-outs to inform co-trav-ellers and the accuracy of these shout-outs is then awarded through ‘Movia Points’. The users are given ratings in accordance to how much and how well they use the shout-outs, and this allows other users to rate their trustworthiness. A travel-card (the long awaited “Rejsekort”) is manda-tory if one is to use The Circle of Trust at the bus stops.

The points can be accumulated to buy free bus rides, gifts, experiences etc. The ratings gained from using a travel-card act as a positive incitement for the users to deliver

accurate information and this therefore minimizes the risk of misuse. The ratings are available online and create a social responsibility aspect.

In our final design we have included two shout-outs that can be used to inform either co-travellers who are logged onto a specific bus via an application or co-travellers who are waiting for the bus at the next stop. The shout-outs are; “The bus is coming” which informs the users that the bus is indeed coming. “The bus is late” which allows the users to engage in other activities.

Circle of Trust3

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The concept is illustrated in two different scenarios:

The combination of real-time informa-tion via GPS as well as the user-generated information allows more transparency.

fig. 1

fig. 2

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We initially chose our target group to be anybody who uses the bus and who wished to be better informed on the whereabouts of their busses. However, having a broad target group made it more difficult to develop a product, which could be relevant for a large user-group. To narrow and tar-get our user-group we started brainstorm-ing on which user-group could be the most suitable to focus on.

During our fieldwork, observing and interviewing people at the bus stops, we

Survey137 participants within our user-group an-swered a survey made by us. The statistics below gave us an overview of the problems defined by our informants.

concluded that young people tend to be more frustrated with the lack of accurate information and the uninformed delays. Young people seemed also to be more keen on using smart phones i.e., we decided consequently to focus on the following target group:

Students between 20-30 years attending a higher education in Copenhagen, who on a regular basis use the bus.

The following charts show:

fig. 3, how often do you use the bus?fig. 4, how often to you experience the bus to be latefig. 5, how do you plan your bus-trip?fig. 6, what solution would you like?

fig. 3 fig. 4

User Group4

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fig. 5

fig. 6

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Focus Group InterviewAfter analyzing our data from the online survey, we gathered a smaller group of students to enlighten us further about the subject matter.

We used a semi-structured interview, giv-ing the informants the possibility to speak freely, but on the other hand, making sure that our questions would be reflected upon. The interview was recorded.

“It is nice with the displays, but when it doesn’t work it has the oppo-site effect. If I want to be on time I would not take the bus.” Rune

“It would be nice if you could see the bus moving. I would like to know, that I’m not waiting in vain [...] that something is happening.” Karen

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Busses as the least popular means of transportationAll of our informants expressed that they prioritized the bus as the least used means of transportation. The informants used busses when there was no other alternative.

We found it interesting that the inform-ants expressed so little faith in busses and their travel plans. One example is that they would prefer information from an app to information direct from the bus stop. This shows an overall signal that the bus com-pany, Movia, has a serious trust issue.

Killing timeThere was a broad agreement that enter-taining (i.e. info boards, music, digital games etc.), would be annoying. The informants expressed this development as bombardment of their private spheres.

Smart Phones4 out 6 informants have a Smart Phone. Using an app for the bus would be great, like the one for the S-trains.

They themselves would not participate in any activity, and would find it annoying if anyone else were loud at the bus stop. Several expressed it would be nice to do something useful while waiting.

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Reflections upon findings Our informants gave us qualitative feed-back and a lot of new material to work with. If we had not performed this inter-view, we probably would not have come up with our to fundamental issues:

Trust and Information.

Besides this the focus group interview contributed nicely to our future process, as it gave us inspiration for developing our personas.

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Personas are typical persons or models, used for demarcating user behaviour, motivations, and expectations, (Saffer 2010: 106). By setting up some scenarios were we implemented the personas to test the features of our design, we were able to clarify the utility and appropriateness of our solutions.

We decided to create two different perso-nas, and we based the personas upon the diverse characteristics of the focus group interviewees. To make them trustworthy and reliable, we found some common set of motivations and behaviours among the interviewees in our focus group, and these became the basis of the personas.

Personas5

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Preceding our first idea generation phase, we grouped various statements from our focus group into categories. These catego-ries facilitated our understanding of the issue we were dealing with, by narrowing our scope and becoming more specific in regards to our problem. Trust was the most commented issue in our focus group and we were able to deduct the same conclu-sion from our quantitative research. This led us to deal with the notion of trust.

After our first observations we started brainstorming to generate a substantial amount of ideas, some which potentially could lead to our concept.

Idea Generation6

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First Ideas

Incorporating a sen-sor that could measure the amount of people waiting at bus stops and making the bus go faster. This would be done by manipulating the traffic lights.

Showing the location of the bus instead of the countdown, via info-screens.

But the social aspect was missing...- What if we took advantage of mobile apps to create a social network?

- In what way could this be useful?

- Would it be interesting to know which busses your friends were in?

- Would it be interesting with a solution that could present statistics in regards to bus popularity and waiting time?

It seemed that mobile apps were the way forward, espe-cially if we had to meet design constraints and focus on incorporating a social aspect.

Getting lost and finding our wayWe also spent a lot of time thinking about the economic aspect of our concepts. This would add a CSR(corporate social responsibility) aspect, but did not add a social aspect and drifted away from our core issue of trust. Through feedback, critique and usability testing our ideas had to be iterated.

Heisting the busses up over the traffic, was one way of insuring that traffic definitely would not affect the transport time. This technol-ogy was unfortunately already implemented… in the Alps.

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Final IdeaWe summarized the feedback collected from our teachers and our fellow students in the mid critic. We quickly realized that our three concepts had some com-ponents that were worth looking closer at. At this point we were rather lost, but a quick change of venue provided us with a new perspective on our final solution. In this process we realized the importance of iterating on our ideas during the develop-ment phase.

An interesting finding during our observa-tions at random bus stops was that people waiting at the bus stop generally tend to turn their head to the left to see if the bus is coming. This finding became a key element towards our final concept. After a quick brainstorming session, our new concept’s main principles were developed.

A communicative technology between two bus stops was thought up. The bus stop was to have a chat function to communicate to the next bus stop and a screen showing the previous bus stop. Thus creating a visual virtual tunnel.

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ReviewAfter some discus-sion we made a list of issues related to our new concept. Our main concern was the privacy issue involved in placing cameras at bus stops. Another major issue was the quality of information sent from an un-mod-erated chat function.

From chat to shout-out

To guarantee a high quality of informa-tion, we developed three buttons with the most important information, according to our focus group and our quantitative data, related to the passengers, instead of the chat: “the bus is late”, ”the bus is coming” and “the bus is crowded”.

From camera feed to real time mapLooking at different alternatives to com-municate the intended information we found the most appropriate solution to be the implementation of some kind of map, instead of the live camera.

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Creating trust and information via communityIn our design process we dealt with an on going issue: Frustration. All of our inform-ants expressed great frustration concerning the irregularity of the busses in Copen-hagen. Our goal was to make the waiting time more bearable ensuring the passen-gers that the bus was en route. Assisting the passengers and avoiding an existential crisis situation; equivalent to waiting for Godot to arrive. If passengers were able to express their frustration and curiosity in a creative and helpful way, we would elimi-nate some of the annoyances and thereby making travelling with the bus more enjoy-able.

By using a community strategy, we con-nected several aspects, such as solidarity, commitment, mutuality and trust. The community aspect could be used as a tool for releasing frustrations attached with waiting for the bus. Because the passengers are all in the same situation and have the same agenda, we hoped to create a feel-ing of solidarity and mutuality that would lead to them helping each other and at the end, helping themselves as well. Thereby

creating a circle of information and trust, relieving the frustration by expressing it and turning it into something positive.

Our community strategy and our design are encouraged by to main elements: Reci-procity and Trust.

Reciprocity can be described as a mutual understanding concerning favours. One person helps another without immedi-ately expecting anything in return but being confidant, that somewhere along the line, the favour is returned. The immedi-ate act is altruism but in the end, the act is caused by self-interest (Putnam 2000: 20). Reciprocity is crucial in our design; If passengers are helping each other by using the shout-outs, the favour will in the end be returned, creating a circle of trust and information essential for our product to succeed.

Observation: Frustrated passengers all in the same situation. What if, you could turn the frustration into something helpful and useful?

Waiting for Godot7

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This leads us to our main problem: How can we help people trust each other?

Trust is closely connected to the norm for reciprocity. We have to generate a social trust, so the passengers rely on one anoth-the passengers rely on one anoth-er, thus making them cooperate and share information. For the reciprocity to work, we have to make it visible whom to trust. Our solution is the creation of a social network.

The problem: A social network is only as good as its users. Some people will be worthy of trust and some will not. There is a risk of misuse leading to a corruption of the system, the information, and the trust. To counter this, we introduced a rating system that would make users accountable for their actions.

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Now focus upon usability testing and how our concept was received.

We tested the different buttons and screens on site with three students. We did this by making paper prototypes of the differ-ent screen modes of the monitor with the shout outs and the map, accompanied by adhesive tape and a voice recorder. The smart-phone app was however not proto-typed and was therefore explained to the users after user testing.

Usability8

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First Usability TestingAll three informants understood the con-cept and we began testing using our paper sketches on location. They were handed;

- “Rejsekort”, (a plastic-prototype), to use as a login of the service.

- mock-ups of our touch screens were taped to the side of the bus stop to en-hance the experience of interacting with a real design.

-The smartphone app, was not at this moment created as a prototype, but was explained after the initial usability testing upon the info-screens.

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“Your design is more trustworthy, as Movia seems to give out random information. The information presented on the screens is information that we can relate to.” Frederik

We asked the three students whether they would use the system if they were given an incitement to do so. Two of our users confirmed and told us that they definitely would use the system correct especially if there was an incentive. Michael added that he thought that it would be nice with the shout-out features on a smartphone app. At this point we had not told them about the additional smartphone app.

The three students mentioned that it would be a great idea with an app for a smartphone but they also mentioned that sometimes it is nice to do something else than typing your phone while you are waiting.

Concluding our initial usability testsOverall our informants were genuinely im-pressed with our concept and its features. They expressed willingness to help fellow passengers, especially if there was an in-citement to do so. They found The Circle of Trust more credible than Movia, due to the real-time and community aspects.

“I think I would use it, just because it is a nice feature: to help each other. And plus, you don’t really have much to do as you wait for the bus” Karen

By carrying out this type of usability test-ing new ideas, aspects and problems sur-faced forcing us to think in new directions. Partly due to this session we redesigned our product so that the layout and the de-sign were slightly altered. With these new changes, we set out to perform a second usability test.

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Second Usability TestingAs our first usability test was executed on site at a bus stop, we figured it would be a good idea to move inside, so our test persons had time to reflect on the general functionality, the design and different but-tons in a quiet environment.

This time we used different test-persons, both students:

• Line, 28 years

• Lykke, 24 years

“The bus is crowded” buttonWe had a specific agenda with this sec-ond usability test: we wanted to find out if some of our buttons were expendable, since we had had doubts about especially the button: “The bus is crowded”.

Our test persons reached the conclusion that the “The bus is crowded” button was hard to use. This perspective confirmed us that the button was dispensable.

We are aware that such information might be useful to i.e. parents travelling with baby strollers, however, since this is not our target group, we decided to remove it.

“How can I see the inside of the bus, standing outside? And plus, the term crowded is relative, so maybe what I see as crowded, others don’t.” Lykke

“How will I know that the bus will not be emptied at my stop. You know, that the passengers will get off? In that case, I am giving out wrong information to my fellow passengers.” Lykke

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Repetition, but in a good waySince our design is dealing with commu-nity, we have in mind that a network only is as good as its users. Therefore we have to ensure the information of the busses is communicated, even if in a situation where the community-aspect is lacking. This is why we illustrate the busses wherea-bouts both by using the user driven shout-outs and the real time screen. However we wanted to test the functionality of both aspects, and see what our test persons would think and do, if one of the informa-tive aspects was removed.

“I don’t know if I would trust that the bus is coming, if I don’t know who informed me...” Line

We blocked the real time screen, so only the shout-outs-buttons were visible. The reaction was that it might be hard to rely on other passengers:

We therefore explained that the username of the passengers who are using the system, would be visible along with the shout out:

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“That way it makes it more trustworthy... However, I still would like to have reasurement that the infor-mation is really true... I would like to have the map visible along with the shout-outs-buttons... Also, the ‘Shout’out’- information is useless, if no one is at the bus stop creating them.” Line

This comment is particularly interesting since it dwells on our reflections upon the community aspect, as we hope to change the frustration into something useful for others.

“I would like it more, if both elements were present. Plus, as I see it, the buttons gives you the possibility to express what is going on at your bus stop, you know, if the bus is coming or especially if it is late ... I think it is nice to be able to share this with others... Like, if the bus is late, I can express this to others... like letting steam out, you know, sharing the frustration. It is like: Us against the system, you know, like the passen-gers against the busses. Like, outer enemy, inner unity.” Lykke

By combining the two different elements; real time map and shout-outs, the infor-mation is presentet from two sources - one might say that it is repetitive, however as we have demonstrated from the begin-ning, the students do not rely on Movia’s

information, and by adding the user driven shout-outs, we generate a system where one information backs the other up. This would also reassure passengers that the information they see is correct.

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We do not know if The Circle of Trust is the best solution to solve the issue of trust. We do know, however that our product was well received, and that our users generally were interested in and willing to contribute to the community. We cannot state that our product would work in real life, as all we have is paper prototypes, but what we can conclude, is that our product is a plausible solution to the lack of informa-tion, solved collectively by a user driven method. In our product the passengers’ voice become the answer to the question; How can we develop trust and create infor-mation concerning the busses in Copenha-gen?

When we started our interaction project we were lost. We were in disarray because of all the possibilities and all the different ways of solving a problem. We could not see what the end product would be, which was frustrating and this was likely due to our result-oriented way of thinking.

Now that we are done, reflecting upon the process is really an eye-opening experi-ence. By being creative in many different ways, like sketching, observing, asking questions or simply removing us from the safe and soothing surroundings of ITU, we started to make sense of it all, piece by piece.

We are really content about this practice and feel that the thing to be most proud of is not our product, but our process. With this said, we are still positive with the out-come and find that we hit the head of the nail by focusing on a community driven solution - for the travelers, but certainly also for Movia.

Conclusion9

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During our process, dealing with trust, we were unaware that Movia in fact was working with similar issues. They started a campaign called: “Bedre Bustur”, (Better Bus Trip), focusing upon community as a way of solving the problem of unhappy customers. For an example, their info screens inside the busses, showed pictures of the passengers, smiling at you. This we see as a hard hitting way of demonstrating the collective aspect of riding the bus. As the Bedre Bustur explains:

Movia might have solved the problem in a different way than we did. But it still does not change the fact that a community based solution is a positive way of chang-ing Movia’s reputation, hence making Movia a more positive experience for the users.

“This time around, we are fo-cusing on the community, the smiles and all the work behind the scenes. […] Bedre Bustur wishes you a more joyful bus ride and want to show you fel-low passenger, who aren’t afraid to be happy in the bus.” from Bedrebustur.dk (translated)

Pictures form Bedre Bustur illustrating the community aspect.

Further Thoughts10

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ReferencesMarsden & Jones: (2006) Mobile Interaction Design, J. Wiley & Sons ltd. The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, England

Putnam, R. D.:(2000) Bowling Alone. The collapse and revival of American community, New York: Simon and Schuster

Saffer, D. (2010) Designing for Interaction, Second Edition, Creating Innovative Appli-cations and Devices. New Riders.