Designing experiences for the Tampere tram

Smart-tram – Designing passengers' experience.

Project course Aalto Open University in collaboration with VTT.

Project brief

To explore and create design proposals to enhance the passenger’s experience mediated by real time data for the Tampere tram service.

Project outcome
In a team of two, we developed three concepts for the tram service experience, promoting community, wellbeing and preventive healthcare.

My roles:

• Planning the project process and methods

• Planning and facilitating workshops

• Analysing findings

• Developing concepts

New challenge:
• Working on a project with a very open brief and scope
• Public service sector, including a broad range of users and use cases

The process

Overall, our project lasted four months and went through 4 phases:

Discovery phase: Research, observations, theme interviews

Co-creation phase: Ideation workshop and concept mapping

Concept testing: Prototype session in the Helsinki metro

Analysis and concept definition

We approached the project with the goal of facilitating travel from point A to B using real time data. Early on we realized we needed to shift focus and develop a unique and engaging on-tram experience.

1. Interviews: Understanding context and users (5 interviews)
During the research phases we decided to define our personas using the extreme users: Transport enthusiasts and "car-only" users, driven by convenience.

We selected 30–45 year olds which tend to be the ones supporting financially the use of public transport in the household.

Aim: To understand needs, goals and frustrations and their perception of the "umbrella" topics of the brief:

• Perception and use of public and private transport,
• Perception of smart cities
• Use of technology to facilitate everyday mobility—getting from A to B.

Main insights from interviews:
About users

• City’s compact size makes is easy to park and walk so people living outside the city lack knowledge and interest in the use of public transport.

• Reduced offer of public transport connections from outside the city, makes taking the car an easier and faster option

About the city

• The city is very community oriented due to its small and approachable size.
• Tampere is a pioneer in high-standard industry and education.
• Culture, nature and wellbeing are well rooted in the lifestyle of the city.

We traced the recurring themes in the overall context of participants, mapped them and selected the three most recurring: community, health and lack of information to be considered in our solution.

2. Change in focus

Based on our findings form the previous phase, we changed our focus question:

• What would actually make users want to come use the tram in the first place?

• How might we make using the tram a truly unique experience?

3. Ideation workshop:

We moved on to ideate using our new questions

Details

• Workshop using the main themes found in the discovery phase as guide (community, health and lack of information)

• 12 participants, professionals with diverse skills and mindsets within our target age group.

• Three activities using three types of co-creation methods: Mash-up, Brainwriting and What If scenarios.

Outcome:

• Three service experience concept proposals.

• Main topics through the concepts: community building, wellbeing and health awareness

We debriefed findings and decided to test concepts about Health and Wellbeing:
• From our desk research we found that health is becoming an important parameter by which smart cities are ranked.

• Health a recurrent theme throughout the project's process.
• There are lots of opportunities and benefits for the city to have healthier citizens, as well as to build a community based, preventive health structure.

4. Testing:

Considering 2 of the 3 teams presented solutions for carrying out preventive health check-ups during the travel time, we decided to test exactly that.

We held a prototype session on the Helsinki metro:

1. We put signs inside the metro offering passengers to take their blood pressure during their ride

2. We read their results and gave them a table for them to understand what they meant

3. We gave them tips to consider to keep their blood pressure healthy

4. We observed how people responded and had discussions with participants about their impressions of the experience

Early on we understood we had to adjust our approach to ensure we got more information from the prototype:

• We realized to get people to participate, they needed to be directly approached — we had almost zero volunteers.

• We first engaged in light conversation and only if they showed interest, proposed to get the blood pressure check.

• We approached people at the station and asked to join them on their trip, this prove to be more effective.

Insights:

• Generally people use the commute time to take a pause, disconnect and change their ideas or for entertainment.

• Most people react to being approached using some ice-breaker to motivate them to engage and participate.

• Health check-ups in general are something very unfamiliar. There is very little awareness on preventive health or regular health monitoring, unless someone has symptoms and they are forced to.

5. Developing Service concepts

We held an internal session to analyse findings:

For people to feel interested and encouraged to check and monitor their health while they commute, there needs to be an ice-breaker, a way to activate passengers in a fun and engaging way making t hem feel empowered and interested in monitoring their health.

We used the value proposition canvas to define the value proposition:

For citizens and tourists in Tampere we offer entertaining, on-tram experiences focused on well-being and linked to the city's services and infrastructure, to encourage a preventive approach to healthcare.

The solution should offer users something of value that goes in line with their needs. This is why our solution’s purpose is to be entertaining and engaging, while at the same time educative and empowering. The use of public transport is encouraged while gradually shifting the citizen's approach to healthcare.

We came up with three initial concepts presented as user journeys:

1. The ice breaker: To use the tram as a space to play through challenges, to get passengers to move and engage in physical activity while riding the tram.

2. DJ trail mix: To use the tram as a platform for people to create and share content on well-being city routes linked to the tram and the city’s services and infrastructure.

3. Using the tram as a challenge based educational platform for preventive health.