Circular Train Journey

DESIGN QUESTION

Background

How might we digitize circular train ticket booking provided by Indian railways?

Indian Railways provides the facility of booking Circular Journey Tickets. Circular Train journey offers flexibility to passengers by allowing them to book a single ticket for multiple destinations. But due to the complexity of the process, this process is not digitalized. This project is an attempt to make this process online.

Outcome

Mobile application that helps to book online circular train tickets

Duration

2 Months (July 2018- August 2018)

Skills

Domain and User research, Scenario building, Hi-fi mockups, and prototyping

TOPIC INTRODUCTION

What is CTJ

Indian Railways provides the facility of booking Circular Journey Tickets. Circular Train journey offers flexibility to passengers by allowing them to book a single ticket for multiple destinations. But due to the complexity of the process, this process is not digitalized. This project is an attempt to make this process online.

Why is it good?

When it is used?

Present User Journey

RESEARCH METHODS

Domain research

Since it is a relatively less known area, I have gone through blogs, websites, trip advisor forums, and physical artifacts to understand the entire process.

User Inteviews

Interviewed 5 passengers and 3 station employees to get a deep understanding of the whole system

Empathy Mapping

We did empathy mapping to articulate what we gathered from research, which helped us develop design goals and determine user needs.

PAIN POINTS

Decision Time

Much time to decide on route and places to visit

Present Process

Too lengthy process from making itinerary till completion of journey

Itinerary Making

Confusion in making an itinerary

Approval Procedure

Challenging to get approval from railway employees

Ticket Management

Carrying many tickets is complex and confusing.

Vacation time

Estimating the vacation time between two destinations is tough.

OPPURTUNITY AREAS

After analyzing the findings of primary ad secondary research, emerging opportunity areas are as follow

Users need to memorize all the itineraries for filling the form. Personalisations help here.

Too lengthy process in getting approvals

It’s complicated for people to decide which places to visit and what to see.

IDEATION

Card Sorting

We took 3 participants for doing a card sorting activity. Given the complexity of the procedure, it is advised to practice participatory design to make products closer to the user's mental model.

Information Architecture

From the card sorting activity, I came up with Information architecture. This acts as the guide in making the screens.

Lo-fi Screens

Based on the information architecture and pain points, screens are devised before going for hi-fidelity screens. This helped in making changes to concepts without our own bias in it.

DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS

LANDING PAGE

The landing page gives suggestions to the user and the option to search for the route of their choice.

ROUTE DESCRIPTION

This screen helps the user to explore a particular route in detail. Information
as tourist attractions, popular trips, destinations, videos, feedback is
shown as a part.

ITINERARY SCREEN

After the user confirms the route — After exploring it, the user needs to
prepare his itinerary. This screen appears first when he starts
preparing his itinerary

SUGGESTED ITINERARY

After deleting the unwanted destinations, rearranging them user needs to select the
starting date and class of the journey so that the suggested itinerary can be given to him
which can be edited by the user if he wants. This is a suggestion itinerary screen.

TRIP PLANNER

After planning a trip, automatic recommendations appear along with a to-do list,
places to be visited, adventure sports, outdoor and indoor attractions. Users can add
their plans on daily basis and can maintain dairy here.