Wayfinding in Toronto's Union Station

@ University of Toronto

To improve the citizenship experience of people of Toronto, our team tackled the issue of commuters' negative experience navigating Toronto's Union Station. Using Design Thinking process, our team sought a deeper understanding of the problem space through research and designed a solution based on our understanding of the situation. The outcome of this project is a digital interface of an information kiosk, which allow users to transfer directional information to their phone as a portable guide.

Throughout the project, I was an active team member through voicing my thoughts and perspective and attending team meetings. When research and data analysis takes center stage during our process, I contributed insights from my previous research experience and provided guidance to my team members. All in all, everyone held an equal footing in responsibility and decision-making.
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This project was completed by a team of 5 as a course requirement for the Fundamentals of User Experience course.

Background

For our Fundamentals of User Experience course, we were served with the question of "How might we improve the citizenship experiences of people of Toronto?" At first, our team had multiple domains we were interested in, such as: housing, groceries, public safety, etc. However, we eventually noticed multiple complaints in Reddit.com from commuters about their frustrating experience using Toronto's Union Station. Intrigued, our team dove deeper into this sector, which ultimately became the core of our project.

Design Thinking Process

Phase 1: Research

"Is there even a problem?"

We initiated our design thinking process with secondary research (or desk research) by traversing through Reddit threads, news, blogs, and even reviews from TripAdvisor to have a better grasp of the current situation. Before we proceed further, we must know "Is there even a problem?" And based on our initial research, there was! The multitude of stories of people's negative experience with the station extended even beyond the Reddit threads we initially saw.

To solidify our knowledge of the problem, we conducted primary research and gained a wealth of insights in return. We utilized 1 survey (which garnered 144 responses), 10 interviews, and 2 observation sessions.

Figure 1. Notable Insights from our Survey
Figure 1. Notable Insights from our Survey

Through creating a project rundown, our team solidified the current problem and ideal situation for users. This is a crucial step to creating a suitable solution, as it's necessary to have a good understanding of the problem AND user's ideal experience before jumping into problem solving.

Our team also discussed existing solutions the problem space already has and identified its gaps, in the form of problem statements. We want to avoid creating a solution that already exists. In addition, problem statements helpsus decide our initial focus, providing clarity on our scope.

Figure 2. Slide Deck of our Research Stage

Phase 2: Research Analysis

"How does this problem affect users?"

Based on the insights we gathered during the research phase, our team created a user persona by the name of Carlos, the Commuter.

Figure 3. User Persona Artifact of Carlos the Commuter
Figure 3. User Persona Artifact of Carlos the Commuter

In reality, the station's users are diverse (first-time tourists, Ontarians, frequent commuters, etc.). However, we believe accounting for as many types of users as possible will result in us spreading ourselves too thin. Attempting to solve for everyone could lead to low quality results. As 44.3% of survey respondents (n=144) are working professionals and 37.1% are students, our team decided our solution should initially focus on a co-op university student’s specific journey.

In addition, we also created an empathy map of Carlos’ thoughts, actions, emotions, and words while using the station. A list of Carlos’ needs and obstacles present on his persona isn’t enough. To grasp the gravity of a problem (and in extension, the importance of the existence of a solution), other humans need to internally feel how said problem has impacted another human being. An empathy map can help others bridge the gap and enter someone else’s undesirable experience.

Figure 4. Empathy Map Artifact of Carlos the Commuter
Figure 4. Empathy Map Artifact of Carlos the Commuter

Finally, we broke down Carlos’ experience by diagramming his commuting journey in the form of an as-is scenario, which starts when he leaves home to head to the station, and ends when he leaves the station. In addition, each of the team members voted on which pain point we should solve for the most.

We understand that problems can be contextual and could appear only during specific situations. Breaking down the problem space into detailed journey phases and illustrating them with a story can: 1) help others empathize even further with our persona, and 2) gain clarity of when, where, why, and how exactly the problem starts happening -- which can help us in designing a thoughtful solution.

Figure 5. As-Is Scenario Diagram of Carlos the Commuter
Figure 5. As-Is Scenario Diagram of Carlos the Commuter

Phase 3: Ideation

"What's a suitable solution to the problem?"

After getting a better sense of which aspect of the problem we should solve for, our team decided on 3 of Carlos’ most pressing needs that our solution needs to address, in the form of needs statements. This helps us narrow down our scope so we can realistically and effectively use our available resources.

Then, we brainstormed multiple ideas of a solution that addresses his 3 needs.

Figure 6. Artifact of our Ideas
Figure 6. Artifact of our Ideas

Eventually, after clustering our ideas based on common themes, we narrowed it down to 6. The team then voted on the ideas we think are more feasible and provides more impact. Then, we visualized them in a prioritization grid based on the voting results. There could be multiple ideas that work well with our problem, but we only have the bandwidth to pursue one. Using a prioritization grid ensures we’re making a realistic and thoughtful decision.

Figure 7. Prioritization Grid Artifact of our Ideas
Figure 7. Prioritization Grid Artifact of our Ideas

Our final decision falls on a hybrid solution: A digital information kiosk stationed at the station, with the option of transferring directional instructions to the phone to take with you. A key reason to our decision is that we want our solution to be accessible to anyone and everyone, even users who might not have smartphones.

We concluded our ideation phase by diagramming a to-be scenario. It's similar to the previous commuting journey diagram. But this time around, we’re envisioning how Carlos’ journey will be with the help of our solution. The diagram helps us foresee the hypothetical impact of our solution by comparing and contrasting Carlos' past and future experience. It also assists us in discovering: 1) whether our solution addresses the needs we identified previously, and 2) whether there are more critical problems our solution couldn’t solve for. All in all, it helps us evaluate the effectiveness of our solution to the current problem.

Figure 8. To-Be Scenario Diagram of Carlos the Commuter
Figure 8. To-Be Scenario Diagram of Carlos the Commuter
Figure 9. Slide Deck of our Ideation Phase

Phase 4: Prototyping

"What should our solution look like?"

With our solution finalized, our team decided on goals that our design should accomplish, otherwise known as hills statements. These goals provide concrete outcomes of our solution, which helps in rallying our team to take action. For example, at the station, we want Carlos to be able to view his progress towards his destination. That means, we know that we need to create an interface of the directional instructions and a progress bar.

In addition, these statements serve as a reminder to consider the gaps in the problem space. Sometimes, a solution already exists, but it could’ve missed its mark. In those situations, design goals help us brainstorm ways that our solutions can be more helpful than existing ones.

Next, we drafted a hand-drawn low-fidelity prototype based on the scenarios identified by the design goals. In the end, we established 3 interface flows of the kiosk which corresponds to our 3 hills statements.

Figure 10. Storyboard of our Low-Fidelity Prototype
Figure 10. Storyboard of our Low-Fidelity Prototype

With our low-fidelity prototype finalized, we conducted a guerilla usability evaluation with 3 participants. We showed our participants our low-fidelity screens in the form of PowerPoint slides. Our team felt it was crucial to get user feedback as we’re in the formative stages of our design. We want to make sure that our solution considers user’s perspective. In addition, we also needed to see how our current design measures up against our design goals. Does it address those goals, or did we also miss the mark?

Figure 11. Key Results from our Guerilla Usability Evaluation
Figure 11. Key Results from our Guerilla Usability Evaluation

Building on the feedback we received, we created a clickable medium-fidelity prototype on Figma of our 3 interface flows, combined into 1.

Figure 12. Clickable Medium-Fidelity Prototype of our Information Kiosk
Figure 13. Slide Deck of our Prototyping Stage

Phase 5: Evaluation & Next Steps

"How might we improve on our solution?"

Using our clickable medium-fidelity prototype, we conducted a usability evaluation with 3 participants. Previously, our guerilla usability evaluation helped us gain attitudinal insights from our users (e.g. what users think, what users like, what users dislike, etc.). Unfortunately, we weren't able to capture behavioral insights (e.g. what users' first step would be if they want to look for directions to the TC entrance, etc.) because our low-fidelity prototype isn’t something users can interact with and explore by themselves. However, this time around, we can gain both attitudinal and behavioral insights from users with an interactable prototype.

Figure 14. Key Results from our Usability Evaluation
Figure 14. Key Results from our Usability Evaluation

With the usability evaluation concluded, we've eventually reached the end of our project. Based on our discussions, our team agreed that our next steps would be:

My Learnings