An app for Stockholm Lokaltrafik
Project Overview
A redesign of the mobile app for Stockholms Lokaltrafik, SL. The main touchpoint for tickets and timetables. This project was made in 2016 while working for Topp.
Year
2016
Client
SL
Role
UX-Lead
The Challenge
Stockholms Lokaltrafik came to Topp with the ask to redesign their mobile client. The app was to be their new main point of buying tickets.
SL moves over 800 000 commuters every day; Travelers with very different needs. This meant the app had to cater to everyday users, visiting tourists, and people with various disabilities. SL also wanted an app that felt personal, unique, iconic—and marketable. Transit is there to move people, so people had to be at the center.
There was also an ongoing shift in the ticket system. Abandoning the old “zone system” in favor of a single travel zone, SL needed help determining how this would manifest in the app.
The Project
In addition to me, the team consisted of a visual designer, a researcher, and a design technologist. Early on, we conducted research, including involvement from Synskadades Riksförbund, to gather direct input from the visually impaired. This research informed the design and helped us understand the struggles of different user groups. Through rapid iterations and several prototypes, we validated our concepts and gathered feedback from both users and stakeholders.
For me, as the UX designer, one primary task is to keep the concept together and be the “glue in the team”. There was continuous collaboration between the ‘ticket’ and customer service parts of SL. After the concept phase, we worked with Know-IT, which handled development. For me, this meant creating detailed flows and specifications as well as implementation support throughout the project.
The Result
The app had over a million downloads in the first couple of months. The client (and I) were very happy with the result, though the reviews on the App Store were initially not that great – something I mostly attribute to problems with the service backend and the fact that radically changing a service tends to irritate users. A great learning experience, nevertheless.