A study of the factors in the decision-making process
2018.02
Initial Project Objectives and Goals
This project was an open exploratory project aims to study commuters' behavior. The company didn't set any specific goals at the beginning.
Our initial goal were to study commuters behavior and to have a better understanding of their usage of public transportation. Try to locate the painpoints and potential opportunities of improvement.
PROJECT LENGTH
3 months
TEAM SIZE
Research | Analysis | Design
TEAM SIZE
5
About this project
This is an exploratory research project aim to study commuter behaviors. We want to understand the decision-making process and the factors that affected their decision-making. The project is sponsored by one of the biggest public transportation associations in North America (referred as ABC in the case study).
Being a team of 5, we all take part evenly in each step of the project considering the workload of the project. I'm mainly focusing on strategy, task design and testing facilitating.
How do commuters choose their means of transportation?
ABOUT 15 MINS READING
What you will see in this case study
Background & Challenge
TL; NR - The ABC company is facing lots of pressure and challenges because of the increasing ridership. In order to improve its services and better future planning, they are in need to have a better understanding of their commuters.
The ABC company has reached a record 531 million rides in one year and has become one of the biggest transportation companies serving one of the busiest areas in North America.
From the enormous ridership number that ABC was able to extract the following information about its users:
Ridership:
- 68% of riders take the subway
- 47% of riders take the bus
- 34% of riders take the streetcar
Gender:
- 57% of riders are women
- 43% of riders are men
Employment Status:
- 66% of riders are employed
- 7% of riders are unemployed or stay at home
- 13% of riders are students
Age group:
- 55% of riders are between the ages of 25 - 54 years old
- 16% are under 25 years old
- 29% are 55 and over
Income:
- 26% of riders have an income of $86,000 and over
Time of use:
- 37% of riders use TTC between 9:30am and 3:30pm
- 21% of riders use TTC before 9:30am
- 27% of riders use TTC between 3:30pm to 6:30pm
Frequency of use:
- 42% of riders use the transit system daily
- 34% of riders use the transit system several times a week
- 12% of riders use the transit system only once a week
- 12% of riders use the transit system less than once a week
The high ridership also brings huge challenges to the company. Such as over crowed downtown services, delayed or frequently changed streetcar and bus services because of constructions, etc.
The ABC company aims to improve its service and future planning. They want to have a better understanding of how commuters use oublic transportation and what's the pain points on the current service. They want to do a small scale test study to find the direction.
Preparation
TL; NR - We used interview + observation + online questionnaires to collect inital data on how commuters use public transportation. Those inital background data will help us to set a direction of future research.
To start, we did some interviews and observations around different subway stations and bus/streetcar stops. We chose random commuters and interview & observe upon permission. In the meanwhile, we also send out open questionnaires and surveys online via Survey Monkeys and Reddit.
Initial findings:
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Big waiting time
- Waiting for a train, subway or a bus, which were delayed or canceled without prior warning.
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Hard to access information
- The ABC company does not have an official mobile application. The commuters have to go on the website every time to access information. There is also a text service that provides the scheduling for the upcoming buses or streetcars on each stop.
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Lack of Real-time tracking
- Few riders are using either or third-party mobile apps to track bus or subway schedule. More riders are simply waiting without using any applications (especially subway riders because there's no cellphone reception in the subway stations) and eventually switch to other methods such as Taxi, or walk.
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Riders tend to plan ahead
- most of the riders already planned their shuttle ahead based on different situations. For example, some riders would take the subway to downtown instead of bus or streetcars because of the heavy above-ground traffic; Some riders would choose to bike or walk if the destination is shorter distance; And during bad weather or winter times, more riders choose to take public transportation even during rush hour for longer shuttle time.
The initial findings exposed some current painpoints and shows us commuters tend to plan their trip ahead. And their planning are based on different factors such as travel time, weather, destinations, etc. We decided to dig a bit deeper into the trip planning part.
Fig.4 Keyword mentioned frequency
Fig.5 Participant Coding Table
Define - Contextual Inquiries Study
Contextual inquiry is a user-centered design research mostly used to study users' behavior.
We designed a contextual inquiry study on commuters. This final user study allowed us to further understand a user's considerations when going from point A to B. We wanted to uncover both preferential and circumstantial factors. Every participant had to complete two different tasks and were asked to verbally detail the steps that led them to their final decision. The tasks consisted of different scenarios and circumstances, which allowed us to understand how they affected the user’s decision making.
We observed a group of 10 participants and the findings were consistent and very revealing of the actual thought process. Overall, the lab was a success as it narrowed down our project focus.
1. Testing Scenarios
Task 1
Scenario:
How would you get to a club called ‘Rebel’? (While performing the task, verbally describe the steps and why you are taking them).
Purpose:
The purpose of this task is to test how users plan a non-urgent trip to an unfamiliar place. The club is approximately 40 minutes away from school and does include many
transfers. Since it is a leisure trip, we wanted to see what users favor, and how the weather plays into the decision making.
Task 2
Scenario:
Assume you just received a phone call from a recruiter inviting you to interview for your dream job at the Ontario Science Center at 10:00 AM tomorrow. How would you determine the best route to make it on time? (Once the participant answered, we asked How would that
change if you actually get the job?
Purpose:
This task allowed us to map out the considerations accounted for in a more stressful situation with a time constraint.
2. Observation and Action Analysis
Create Observation Notes
For each participant, we followed a sequential flow to take notes.
The notes records the main action participants were taking as well as our interpretations.
Fig. 1 shows an example of our observation note. The note contains two columns:
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The left column shows the participant's action in sequential order.
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The right column with a yellow background is our interpretation and keywords.
We recorded participants' each action/comment and listed them as one sequence step. For each step, we interpret the actions and extract the main factors, which played an important role in the participants' decision-making process.
Fig 1. Sample observation note for Task 1
Organizing Factors and Conditions
Based on the observation notes, we also created a chart for each participants listing all the factors and conditions they mentioned in the test as well as the frequency of the factors they mentioned during the testing.
Fig. 2 Factors and Conditions that affect users' decision of means for travel
Fig. 2 shows an example of the factos and conditions one participant mentioned in the testing. By regrouping and categoring those factors, we could found the what this participant would take into consideration when planning trips:
3. Transcoding Analysis
Transcoding
In step 2, we analyzied participants' behavior from their actions. This section shows our analysis from the audio recording from the testing.
With the help of software, we were able to transcribe the participants' audio into text format transcription. For each participant, we transcoded and summarized keywords from their action and thought flow. Those keywords will help us further analyzing their thinking flow and decision-making process.
Fig. 3 Example of transcoding
As shown in the Fig. 3. we transcoded the transcripts and summariezed the key mentionings into keyword column.
All the keywords are later stored in a new table where we calculated the frequency each keywords were mentioned during the testing as shown in the Fig. 4 table.
Color coding
In another table, we listed all the key mentioning from the testing and use different colors to regroup them. The similar mentiones are marked by same color, as shown in the Fig. 5.
Findings
Based on the color coding table, we were able to see which factors are the most mentioned and most important factors to participants. Based on the frequency of the mentioning, we were able to create different themes.
A theme is a summary of findings based on participants' feedback. We created primary themes based on the color coding, Inside each primary themes, we also summaried a bunch of Sub-themes. (Fig. 6 shows an example of the initial color theme table)
So here are what we've found out from our participants.
Primary Themes
Commuters use and rely on apps to help trip planning and scheduling.
Shorter trip times dictate trip planning and trip choices, extra buffer times are usually included into planning.
Cheaper travel cost often determines the transportation means on frequent trip planning.
Higher cost method would also to be taken into
consideration under urgent or time-consuming situation.
Shorter walking distances are preferred by commuters when a route requires them to walk
Rush hour traffic and heavy traffic impact route choices.
Simpler routes that have less steps in additional to familiar routes are the preferred routes by commuters.
Faster means of travel, route familiarity and transit accessibility are preferred over the unreliable public transit system.
Travel means determined by urgency and trip purpose.
Travel habits, travel frequency, time of travel, commitment to appointments and personal matters are considered when making trip decision
Different factors such as unfamiliarity with the route, difficulty traveling, the hour of travel, trip urgency and attire affect the choice of transportation
Bad weather impacts the trip duration, as well as slows down transit, and users want to avoid the inconvenience brought by it.
Fig. 6 Theme table example
Design & Testing
From contextual inquiry study, we narrowed down the factors that would affect commuters' decision-making process on choosing means of tranportation.
But how does commuters really take those factors into cosideration in real life? Is that possible we could create an app to help them with their trip planning? We decided to explore further more on the trip planning process and a potential app to help commuters planning their trips.
1. Participatory Design
Instead of designing something on our own and then testing out, we think it might be helpful to conduct a participatory design session.
Participatory design is a desgin approach attempting to actively involve all stakeholders (e.g. employees, partners, customers, citizens, end users) in the design process to help ensure the result meets their needs and is usable.
In our case, we thought it might be helpful to ask commuters to be involved into the design process so we could have better understanding of their thinking process.
We invited 5 participants from the previous testing pool to attend the session and we designed 4 small tasks to guide testers step by step to design the best trip planning flow.
Set up:
We wrote down all the potential factors on the stickers, such as "Shuttle time", " Departure time", " Weather", "Type of appointment", " cost", etc. All the cards are laid out on a whiteboard based on category. Participants could choose any amount of factors from those stickers, they could also add their new factors (we have markers and empty stickers for participants).
To make the design session more controlled and organized, we separated the whole design session into 4 small steps, each step is a small task. The testers were asked to design a trip planning app. They were asked to finish all 4 tasks step by step, in the end, they should be able to finish a complete design.
Step 1
Each participant need to find out from the stickers all the factors they think would affect their decision-making.
Step 2
Card sorting - each participant need to sort all the factors into different groups. At most 5 groups are allowed.
Step 3
5 papers with mobile screen pre-printed on them will be distributed to each participant. Participants need to fit in the previous 5 groups of factors into 5 screens.
Step 4
Participants need to decide the order of the screen and also have a chance to regroup the factors for the final time.
2. Result
To our surprise, all the participants did a really good job designing their ideal trip planning flow (You could check some images taken from the design session)
We also designed a potential mobile application.
Check the sketch of the screen design here
Combining all participants design, we were able to finalize an ideal trip planning flow:
1. Setup location - including destination & departure location.
2. Type of trip:
Leisure - none-time sensitive trips, could be wandering around.
Appointment - could be medium time-sensitive, such as appointments with friends or doctor, or parties/events.
Professional - very time-sensitive, could be interview, work, catch train/flight.
3. Travel Time:
Departure time or arrival time.
Margin time - many commuters would add extra time on the overall trip especially when planning for a time-sensitive trip
4. Result screen
- showing different means of transportation options along with some extra information related to different types of transportation such as travel time, cost, construction, transfer time, weather, etc.
Sketch files
Summary and Reflection
The original goal for this project was to help the ABC company better understand the users' needs in order to lay the foundation for future service improvement. The company also wanted to collect ideas for potential future mobile applications.
Upon research, we noticed that lots of commuters chose to plan the trip ahead of the actual trip. And their decision-making process is affected by many different factors and elements.
In this project, we studied commuters' decision-making process on how they plan their trips, and what means of transportation would they use for their trips. How did they decide to use that means of transportation and what are the factors that affect their decision on the means of transportation to use. The study as well as potential app design was proposed to the business team of the ABC company. The team leader was very interested in the report and the idea of the app. Hopefully, our findings could help and inspire the ABC company to provide more useful services for commuters in the future.
We also had the changed to use different human-centred research approaches to study human behaviour on real-life issues.
Because of the limitation of this case study, lots of research and process were not shown in this article. If you are interested to learn more about this project. Please don't hesitate to contact me.
Some useful resouces
Discovery
We decided to run 2 lab testings to further study how commuters planning for their trip.
1. Scenario design
4 tasks are designed to test how users plan trips using transportation in the great Toronto city area. Each task presents a different scenario for the user to solve and they will have different circumstantial settings. The different settings are based on initial assumptions.
Task 1
Scenario:
Your friend just texted you to go to Harbourfront Center as soon as possible, but you have never been there. You want to check what’s the fastest way to get to Harbourfront Center from School using ABC services (Assume you are traveling right from where you are now)
Task:
Please show us the steps you would take to plan the above-mentioned trip.
(While performing the task, verbally describe the steps and why you are taking them.)
Testing objectives:
The purpose of this task is to test how the user plans a random trip and how they select the most efficient route which will give us insight on user habits and pain points.
Task 2
Scenario:
Assume you just received a phone call at 8:30am from a recruiter inviting you to interview at your dream job at 1:00pm on the same day. The interview is at 40 King Street West, But the issue is that you have never been there before. How would you determine the best route
to reach the location on time using the ABC?
Task:
Please show us how you plan your commute from home to the interview location on time.
Testing objectives:
The purpose of this task is to test how the user plans a trip without knowing the location and with time constraints. This will allow us to determine what steps the user takes when dealing with an urgent situation.
Task 3
Scenario:
Assume that you have just left a long day of classes at the school and you are waiting for your bus to get home. It already has been ten minutes past the scheduled arrival time and the bus hasn’t arrived yet. Since you are very tired and want to get home right away, What would you do now?
Task:
Please show us how are you going to track the bus (you can use any app, websites, or any other ways. You need to speak loud about your choices and verbally describe each step while performing them)
Testing Objectives:
The purpose of this task is to test whether the user would check real-time schedules or not. If so, what
methods are used?
Task 4
Scenario:
Assume a family member is moving to Toronto. They want to find out the nearby available ABC services. How will you guide them to find that information?
Task:
Please show us how you would demonstrate the best to discover the ABC services, wherever and whenever needed.
Testing Objectives:
The purpose of this task is to test how do users find nearby ABC services in a new place and how familiar users are with the ABC services.
2. Dry run
5 participants are recruited online for the testing, each participant needs to finish 4 tasks.
The facilitator reads the scenarios to the testers and asks them to finish the tasks using their own mobile devices via their own choice of applications. During the test, we asked them to use a ‘Think aloud’ approach to explain and describe each step and how those decisions were made. After each test, several questions will be asked based on the observation.
Initial feedbacks
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For Task 1 and 2, all testers chose to use one map app (such as google map or Waze) to check the distance, time, and options for transportation.
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Only one of them mentioned they would also use a real-time tracking app (such as Transit). Most of the testers don't use real-time tracking at all.
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All the testers chose to calculate travel time and departure time by heart instead of using the already built-in function in the Google map.
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We didn't get very constructive feedback from Task 3, most of the testers chose to take uber or taxi.
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For task 4, the feedback got complicated. Testers mentioned lots of factors that might affect their decision such as shuttle time, departure time, service options at destination area (prefer subway than bus or streetcar), the purpose of the travel (for fun or for work) and weather, etc.
Overall, during this dry run, we didn't get the responses we expected. We found that our scenarios were not well structured and some of the tasks were constrained to the public transportation. But our testers (commuters) are using more than just public transportation. They also consider other shuttle options such as walk, bike, drive or taxi, Uber, etc. Therefore, we revised the testing scenarios to be more open and more structued.
3. Revised Scenarios
Task 1
Scenario:
I am new here, and I am not sure what is the best way to get to the CN Tower and Ripley’s Aquarium. Can you please show me the easiest and cheapest way to get there? (Could be walk, biking, cab, public transportation)
Post Questions:
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Will you use only this method to get everywhere in Toronto?
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Will you change your method depending on different weather or temperature conditions?
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What do you think is the best way to get around Toronto for School, Work or Leisure?
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Why did you choose this particular method instead of other options?
Purpose:
The purpose of this task is to study what is the easiest and cheapest way for the user, and how do they show it to someone else.
Task 2
Scenario:
Assume you just received a phone call from a recruiter inviting you to interview at your dream job at 10:00 am tomorrow. The interview is at 700 Eglinton Street West, but you have never been there before. Please show us how would you determine the best route and best method to reach the location on time from your home?
Post Questions:
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Assume if you successfully got the job, how are you going to commute everyday? Any differences from the previous one?
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How do you calculate the travel time? (By yourself or using the app?
Purpose:
The purpose of this task is to test how the user plans a trip with 1). Time constraints. 2) Location constraints. 3) Different travel time. 4) Different travel purpose.
Findings:
From two rounds of dry run, we were able to confirm the following factors that play an important part in the trip planning:
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Type of trip - leisure or for work.
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Overal travel time
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Departure / arriving time - during rush hour or not
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Weather
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Distance of the trip
We also noticed that those factors not only affects the type of public transportation commuters would choose (subway, streetcar, bus), they also affect the choice of means of transportation for the trip (public transportation, drive, walk, bike,carshare, etc.)
So we have decided to study the decision-making considerations when picking a means of transportation.
Instead of creating scenarios based on the usage of public transportation. We open up the scenario and give testers the option to freely describe how they would accomplish the task without much constraints.
The purpose of our revised approach is to fully focus on the problem faced by the user and how they resolve it. We will not focus on possible solutions or implementations at this point.
TL; NR - To learn more about the commuters' trip planning. we designed and conducted several trial tests to figure out how do commuters plan their trip and how their plannings are affected by different factors.