A visual information board representing the activity of the buses at the iconic Majestic Bus Station in Bangalore
My Role:
• Conducted interviews on the bus station
• Conducted secondary research by reading news and articles about the bus station
• Assisted in creating the circuit diagrams and putting together the physical prototype
• Created the videos for the information board
• Created the storyboard
The Team:
3 UX Designers
Duration:
10 days
Product type:
Information board for the Majestic bus station
Overview
Drop Cendu is a device that displays information about the bus activity at the bus stop. It is the complete visualization of data without any screen-based or text-based interaction.
It creates an easier and more comprehensive way to read information, especially at a crowded and confusing bus station like the Majestic Bus Station in Bangalore. It is put together through tangible computing appliances and with the help of a raspberry pi. It makes the experience of catching a bus less stressful.
The word cendu, means ball in Kannada the local language in Bangalore.
Research Objectives
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To observe traffic and crowds - both vehicular and pedestrian.
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To map out stakeholders and their respective impact
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Look at safety for women and children
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Accessibility for the elderly and differently-abled
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The extent of technology usage and reliance.
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To look at the layout and organization of the bus station and its neighboring facilities and find ways to map it.
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Variety of facilities are offered at the bus station.
Research Plan
Primary research
Unstructured Observation:
To give us an unbiased broader understanding and notice issues from on-lookers' perspectives that otherwise go unnoticed.
Interviews:
To map out stakeholders, confirm existing issues, and get an insider's perspective on the workings of the station.
Ethnographic research:
To get an on-ground and first-hand understanding of the context.
Secondary research
Majestic is widely used and one person's experience is insufficient to map out larger issues hence, we were exploring broader perspectives.
Research Insights
The layout is poorly planned and isn’t built to handle the huge intensity of crowds and buses.
There is a high possibility of a mishap or confusion due to the inaccurate bus timings and heavy foot traffic.
Safety is a major issue that is ignored. There should be more systems for crowd control and safety.
There is no crowd control, and time scheduled for buses are not followed.
The integration of technology should be un-obstructive and intuitive due to the busy nature of the station.
The problem seems to be:
The current station rules are not followed by the buses or the passengers, which leads new passengers clueless on the station, it is not accessible to all and poses safety issues.
Ideation
The aim while doing ideation was to explore how well can tangible and digital overlap. Before starting our brainstorming exercise we mapped out “Things to think about” . Like the kind of everyday activities associated with a bus stop and the stakeholders. This was done to provide triggers if necessary while generating ideas.
Final Concept
After considering many ideas we concluded on a non linguistic information board.
DROP CENDU
How does it work?
Concept Diagrams:
Overview
Service Blueprint
Key Use Cases
Storyboarding
Fig1.
Fig2.
Fig3.
Fig4.
The drop Cendu box is present on all the platforms (Fig1.). It displays information about the buses making a stop on that platform specifically (Fig2.). There is also present a walkway bridge that people use to navigate across the bus station avoiding the buses paths. There , there is a large digital display which shows the map of the Majestic Bus Stop marking all the bays and platforms. (Fig3.) Here one can see all the movements of the buses presently at the station.
On the front of the walkway facing the platforms and buses is displayed the arrival and departure of all buses will colorizing and de - colorizing balls to make sure nobody misses their bus.(Fig4.)
Insight
The platform waiting areas are crowded since there are users waiting for multiple different buses and are unsure of their arrival time.
There is currently no cohesive data or display system at the Bus Stop
Irregular/predictive bus timings displayed on BMTC information board
Concept
The arrival time for specific buses is accurately known and displayed so people know not to wait at the platform pointlessly and can occupy other areas.
The concept depicts all bus timing related information, based on real-time data, in one place.
This visualization of data is abstracted to show accurate values.
Overcrowding of buses
Bus doors automatically close once the system registers that the limit on the number of people that can enter the bus has been reached.
Bus schedule is not currently followed by the buses
The live tracking of buses accurate, real-time timings instead of the expected.
There is a lot of chaos and pushing while boarding and queuing for the bus
There are visuals that show the real-time filling up of the bus to deter pushing and avoid chaos.
Implications
• In the larger context of Majestic Bus Station, this concept displays information relating to bus arrival times, wait times, and frequency to make the waiting and boarding experience better.
• It reduces the overall anxiety of waiting for a bus with uncertain timings, and thus the anxiety of missing the bus.
• It leads to the complete eradication of the inaccurate bus system as a whole, as eventually the information system works by analyzing trends, then analyzing and predicting them.
• It depicts an accurate arrival time and thus helps with time management for both the users, and the systems of the bus station.
• It creates a more organized waiting area,as only people anticipating the upcoming bus wait at the platform, and there isn’t much uncertainty or people waiting for multiple buses - thus there is less rush and confusion.
• It gives BMTC more statistics and data on the daily traffic, to notice patterns in crowd flow. This will eventually lead to better measures to handle crowds and traffic.
Circuit Diagram
Working Prototype
Using Tangible bits (Raspberry Pi), we decided to make our prototype, we tried all different methods of making throughout the process. We started my rapid prototyping by using whatever we found around us and tried to make it functionally by adding digital components listed above to make a working prototype. This took a lot of trial and error and 'jugaad' since we were trying to use a few basic sensors and putting them to multiple other uses in order to fulfill our requirements.
The functionalities shown in the prototype are-
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Bus arriving at the Majestic Bus Station and the ball dropping because of it.
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The ball colorizing based on the number of people entering the bus.
Final working prototype
All the displays are shown through this video
Progress and Documentation
Feedback
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The design isn’t entirely inclusive as the whole visual and colour aspect doesn't include blind, and colour blind people.
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People are accustomed to the existing system of bus numbers, and revamping the entire system to colours could throw people off and not everyone knows how to interpret abstracted visual information. The large number of buses would also require a large number of colours and this could get confusing.
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A scale reference to understand the time intervals between balls would be useful so people can get more accurate information about waiting time.
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Different people have different priorities and this information might not be vital and useful to all kinds of users.
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More familiar colours should be used to guide people, for example red, yellow, green, for stop, go, and wait.