Redesigning Bus-Ticketing Experience of RedBus App

by Akshay Rawat

Snapdeal is India's largest online marketplace valued at $6.5 Billion, featuring a wide assortment of products across categories like Electronics, Home, Fashion, etc. It currently has 275,000 sellers, over 30 million products and a reach of 6,000 towns and cities across India.

RedBus is world's largest online bus-ticketing organization. RedBus has over 5 million happy customers and has sold more than 60 million tickets globally. It offers users the convenience of checking schedules, selecting buses, viewing seat layouts, and paying for bus tickets - all with a few taps on a phone.

PROJECT AIM

The aim of my winter internship at Snapdeal was to give a face to the company’s newest service in association with

RedBus so it’s more accessible to most, if not all, of Snapdeal’s multi-million user base.

Background

The pie chart to the right shows Snapdeal as the highest share of voice holder in the Indian market at a 23.1% market share, ahead of giants like Amazon and Flipkart. Snapdeal will use the reach of its mobile app in hundreds of remote and rural areas across India to provide its users with the convenience of online bus-ticketing along with improving the service for its existing users.

This partnership between Snapdeal and RedBus is the perfect nexus between experience and reach. With these two strengths, Snadpeal and Redbus, together, will be able to achieve their goal of providing this convenience to as many users as they can.

Scope

Snadeal’s market share in online shopping in India

For this step, I interviewed, observed, and interacted with three kinds of users. First, the avid work traveller and advanced user who uses two to three apps or websites to find the best price. Second, the retired population who don't make up a majority of the user base but are a good potential audience with the luxury of time and leisure to travel. Third and final pool consists of the servants of low wage workers who travel back and forth between the city they work in and their village to reunite with family.

Work to fully understand the experience of the user for whom you are designing. Do this through observation, interaction, and immersing yourself in their experiences

Empathize

Design Process

For this project I followed Stanford D-School’s Design Thinking Process. It first defines the problem and then implements the solutions, always with the needs of the user demographic at the core of concept development. This process focuses on needfinding, understanding, creating, thinking, and doing. At the core of this process is a bias towards action and creation: by creating and testing something, you can continue to learn and improve upon your initial ideas. Its a 5-step process and this is how it goes:

IdeateExplore a wide variety of possible solutions through generating a large quantity of diverse possible solutions, allowing you to step beyond the obvious and explore a range of ideas

For the third step, I started out by sketching out wireframes on paper and then moving on to Adobe Xd. With detailed wireframe I went to users and asked for their feedback and recorded their observations and tried to sculpt a more user centered design.

I carefully studied my notes and user responses to form a comprehensive list of do’s and don’ts, must have’s and more for the new app design.

Define Process and synthesize the findings from your empathy work in order to form a user point of view that you will address with your design

Prototype Transform your ideas into a physical form so that you can experience and interact with them and, in the process, learn and develop more empathy

Adobe Xd allows you to test UIs on phones and are also shareable through links that can be accessed online or on a phone. This way I was able to use them on my phone and reposition certain buttons and redesign some tabs and improve organization throughout.

Try out high-resolution products and use observations and feedback to refine prototypes, learn more about the user, and refine your original point of view Test

Using the same Xd feature from the previous step, I took it to users and observed them interact with the new design. I noted differences, similarities, struggles, and the convenience users experienced while using the new design and accordingly made changes to the app.

Competitive Analysis

Latest RedBus UI

Strengths

• Clean and simple UI • Emphasis on the "From"

and "To" tab makes it easier for tech-illiterate users to navigate

• "Offers" section improves user loyalty

Weaknesses

• "Recent Searches" tab is hidden under offers

• No "Upcoming Trip(s)" section

• Cluttered results page

Current Snapdeal UI

Strengths

• Clean and simple UI • Provides convenience

of a one-stop app instead of having 6 or so different apps

• Trustworthy collaboration with Redbus

Weaknesses

• Simple but boring UI • Too much effort to get

to the app and access ticket

• Same cluttered results page

New Snapdeal UI

Strengths

• Clean and easy to navigate UI displaying relevant information

• Easy access to "Recents" and "Upcoming Trip(s)"

• "Offers" section to improve user loyalty

Weaknesses

• Could seem a little cluttered

• Distracting Snapdeal/RedBus bar at the top

• Doesn't display all the info

User Personas

Menu, Log in and other optional actions

Returning user screen with strong emphasis on user

empathy and requirements

Search screen with personal suggestions

and popular destinations

1 2A

Wireframes | Menu, Home, Search

Boarding Point selection offering map support to

ease the selection process

Same emphasis as the Boarding Point selection

page

Seat selection page offering a simple and easy to use interface avoiding any possible confusions

5 6 7

Wireframes | Board, Dropoff, Seat Selection

Detailed search options with optional filters to make

search easy for layman users

Results page with priority given to the organization

of information

3 4

Wireframes | Filters, Results

Confirmation page giving a detailed price breakdown and offering the

convenience to change any information

Traveller details page demanding only relevant information

avoiding tedious forms

8 9

Wireframes | Confirmation, Traveller Details

Using geolocation to minimize user action

Simpler search bar with easy access to menu

Recent Searches to make minimize effort for returning users

Offers section to save users money and improve loyalty

Simple card like design to show upcoming trip(s)

Home Page

Final UI

Showing relevant information without any distractionsA new filters bar to make

sorting easy for less tech savvy users with more options

available for advanced users

Simple card-like display to clear the clutter and make the

information more readable

Use of symbols, font styles and colors help organize information better and

make it easier on the eyes

Results Page

Final UI