Communicating User Insights with Travel Mindsets and Experience Personas in Intra-city Bus Context

Abstract

Design of attractive services for the bus travel context is important because of the aim to increase the usage of sustainable travel modes of public transportation. In bus travel, both user experience of the digital services and the broader service design context of the public transportation need to be addressed. Experience-Driven Design (EDD) can be used to take the passengers’ needs and experiences in the core of the design process. This paper presents a qualitative diary and interview study on bus travel experience with 20 passengers in two major cities in Finland. The aim of this study was to identify and communicate frequent bus passengers’ needs, experiences, values and activities as user insights to support experience-driven service design in the public transportation context. Based on the data analysis, we derived ten Travel Mindsets: Abstracted, Efficient, Enjoyer, In-control, Isolation, Observer, Off-line, Relaxed, Sensitive, and Social. To communicate the study findings on bus passengers’ travel experience, Travel Experience Personas were created. The personas include primary and secondary travel mindsets, specific needs related to bus travel, insights on mobile device usage, and target user experience (UX) goals that could enhance the personas’ travel experience. We also discuss how the personas can be used as a communicative design tool that supports EDD of novel services in the bus context.