Initial observations of the NYU Shuttle App
When I went to download the NYU shuttle app, I couldn’t find it in the Google Play store, so it seems it’s not available on Android
Unnecessary open animation especially when in a rush
The map with the shuttle live tracking is useful, but it’s hard to see the individual lines
The dotted lines sort of blend together from a distance and lack color contrast to differentiate them
The stops are labeled on the map by a marker that looks like a street sign, but there is no differentiation between the routes, all of them use the same icon
Some routes don’t seem to have all the stops labeled on map which makes it difficult to find the location of the stops
Each bus on the map is labeled with a number which allows users to see which busses are on which routes and where on the route they are
Each stop also has a number underneath it (not sure if this information is necessary)
There is no way to check the stops for one specific route except by picking a specific route and individually tapping the stops or checking the top line of the schedules
Bus icon for the ferry (is there a secret underwater tunnel)????
Dotted lines zoomed out aren’t very clear (colors blur)
Wrong route is shown when I selected a route from the drop down menu
The schedule tab is just a chart of the time for every single route and it’s rather confusing to read
All routes are put together and there is no way to personalize the schedule for the user’s specific needs
The color of the routes on the schedule tabs are different than the colors on the map
When inactive stops are shown, they are shown as this light gray that almost blends into the lightness of the map. They are hard to see when zoomed out and often tap on them by accident
Keep getting asked to rate the app
Crashes often
Survey Analysis
It seems that many IMA students do use the NYU shuttle system, and around half of them use the NYU Shuttle App while the other half use other modes of accessing the shuttle information of those the majority finding the information on the website. For the students who use the NYU Shuttle App, the majority use the app at least once a week, and 37.5% use it quite frequently. All of the students who use the app use it for the live tracking and/or schedule features. Of the 8 students who do use the app, 7 were not completely happy with the app, giving it 4 stars or lower. The general consensus of these 7 is that the app isn’t very user-friendly: it’s confusing and doesn’t have the features the users need for their commutes. Many of the app users find the app unreliable, finding it crashes often or that certain features do not work. A strong emphasis on lack of personalization, whether it be personalized alerts, schedules, routes, runs through many of the suggestions, giving the user more options to find information for their specific needs rather than seeing a lot of unnecessary information. Another strain of complaints is directed towards the interface of the app itself, one user making many comments about the ugliness and illegibility of the UI. Efficiency and speed also seems to play a major role in the use, or in this case the disuse, of the NYU Shuttle App; more than half of non-users state that other methods provide information must faster than the app. However, of the remaining non-users, half of them did not even know about the app, which is a separate issue about lack of marketing or information about the app itself.
The users want something that fits their needs. They want an app that can give them information for their own needs without overwhelming them with unnecessary features and information that doesn’t pertain to their lives. The users want an easy and fast way to find information about the shuttles: where they are, when they come and go, and what happened to them if they aren’t where they should be.
Interviews
I honestly couldn’t find many people who did use the app. Many of the people I talked to didn’t even ride the shuttle often or ever, much less know that a shuttle app exists. I did manage to find two people who did use the app, and I asked them about their experiences with riding shuttles and the shuttle app. One of the two I interviewed about the app uses the shuttle quite regularly and uses the app to track the buses and to check the schedule. She complained about the app crashing many times when she used it and also about the inaccuracies of the tracking, which is consistent with a lot of complaints from the survey. She also didn’t like the layout of the map and griped about how unnecessary the actual map was and the ability to zoom out past Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. The other used the app for the same reasons, but she uses the shuttle system for financial reasons: because it’s free. She didn’t like the app either because of its poor design and the inconsistencies of the visual layout and aesthetic between each tab. For one of the people I interviewed who didn’t use the app, the convenience of having a shuttle that goes from the main campus to a stop near her dorm is one of the main reasons she uses the shuttle system, however, she said she doesn’t use the NYU Shuttle app because the information she wants to know, the schedule, is online. Many of the others I interviewed have little to no experience riding the shuttle and whenever they want to try using the shuttle they often give up because of lack of information about the schedule and routes. One even stated they tried to use the shuttle app to find the shuttle routes and schedules, but was too overwhelmed and confused by the app and promptly uninstalled the app.
Observations
Every Tuesday I take the 1:45pm shuttle to the Brooklyn campus. This Tuesday I got to the Broadway and 4th St. stop around 1:35pm, and I saw some others had come early, waiting for the bus to arrive. When 1:45 rolled around, we all stood around somewhat confused, some looking down at their phones as if checking the schedule or live tracking. An NYU shuttle had arrived at the stop earlier, and many approached it thinking it was the bus for Route A, but the bus turned off after dropping students off, and the driver exits slowly leaving the bus unattended. We all seemed to gather together unconsciously, making a little bubble of people looking around for the bus. The bus was a bit late, and it wasn’t even a proper NYU bus either, just a white bus with an “A” written on the window, so there was mild confusion written on people's faces as a white bus neared the stop. There were already people on the bus, which was unusual since the Tisch stop is usually when most people get on or off. As we pulled up to the Lafayette stop, the students were waiting on the sidewalk, but the bus seemed to stop farther than they expected, and the students must walk over to the bus as students exited from the back. Each stop afterwards, students exited the bus but no one got on.
I checked the same bus stop on Wednesday around the same time, and most students gathered along the edge of the building at the stop waiting for the bus to pull up. I found that there were less people waiting for the shuttle that time of day. I walked past the same stop later that day, around 3:30, and there seemed to be a bit of confusion with the buses because a crowd had formed around a bus, many with concerned or confused looks on their faces. Some of the shuttles I saw were similar to the bus I rode the day before, a white with a paper with the route letter taped onto the window. On Thursday, I observed the stops in front of Tisch early in the morning and around 4pm. I found some similar situations, students waiting in front of the stops, but much less people in the morning than in the afternoon. I also found that though a significant number of students wait in front of the stop, there are still quite a few that come a few minutes after the bus door has opened to let the crowd in, some even rushing to the bus as the doors are about to close.
Competitive Analysis
Google Maps does a really great job of giving live information about bus and subway schedules. You can personalize your routes by entering in your addresses and Google will give you the fastest (most efficient) route. It also gives you information about the subway routes. Not only does it give you your start and end point on the subway, it gives you information about the stops in between which can be found under how many stops you take. The live information is probably the most useful as it tells you the schedule of the subways but not by what time they arrive but by how much time it is until they reach your stop. This live tracking can also give you information about delays and how they will affect your estimated time of arrival. Google Maps checks off a lot of boxes in terms of fulfilling a user’s needs. It gives the user the ability to personalize their routes by putting in their destination and giving them options about what mode of transportation they prefer to use, giving an estimated travel time for each mode. For the subway/bus mode, it gives the user the easiest and fastest way to get to their destination. It also gives them just about all the information a user needs to know about their given route: how much time it will take, ETA, subway schedule, live subway tracking, and alerts about delays.
The Pigeon Public Transit App also does live tracking of the subways by giving you the location of each subway. The special thing about Pigeon is that some of the information is also crowd sourced. There can be reports about how packed the subways are or if there are any delays or accidents from people who are also commuting. It’s the ultimate live tracking because as long as reports are coming in, the reports may be more detailed than any other information that is available live.