NEXT - Public Transport
Enhancing Public Transport through Emotional Design
Project
Masters Thesis UE
ROLE
UX/UI Designer
Focus
Experience Design
Date
July 2024 - December 2024
NEXT is a mobile app that reimagines public transport through a more intuitive, emotionally resonant experience. Built during my Master’s thesis, it combines research, UX, and UI into a seamless journey, from live navigation to ticketing. Designed to reduce friction for global commuters, it prioritizes clarity, accessibility, and delight.
Timeline
From foundational research to high-fidelity prototypes in 6 months, developed alongside other academic and freelance projects during my Master’s thesis.
Impact
Through my research, I proved that emotional design is the foundation of commuter trust. By prioritizing operational transparency, I transformed stressful transit data into a reliable experience that replaces daily anxiety with a sense of calm and control.
Through primary research involving 8+ global participant (expert interviews), 30+ surveys and questionnaires, three pillars of urban mobility were validated:
9:41
Key Insights
Trust through Transparency
€11.30
100% of users identified real-time accuracy as the most vital feature.
Reliability is the ultimate driver
€4.30
75% of Commuters stated that better real-time information would be the primary reason they would use public transport more frequently.
Emotional Design vs. Functional Utility
€2.40
Design quality and information quality have a direct, significant impact on user satisfaction.
Map
Tickets
Schedules
Account
Competitor Analysis
I analyzed four direct competitors in this industry with their product features
Multi-modal Transport
Payment & Ticketing
Navigation & Route Planning
Live Updates
Accessibility
User Engagement
This helped me learn about the design principles I could use to influence a user’s experience to make it better!
Wireframes
The wireframes were designed and a prototype of that was developed for testing.
Using the prototype I was able to understand potential pitfalls and mistakes I’d made with the users and further develop it.
As a frequent public transport user myself, I had to empathize other user personas as well to tweak the wireframes just enough to make a balance with emotional design principles.
With the wireframes finalized, the NEXT step was the UI designs with the said principles.
Final Design
Emotional Design Principles
Here are some emotional design principles followed by UX design principles used in this concept.
Personalization
Operational Transparency
Delight
Gamification
Universal Design
Miller’s law
Priming
This helped me learn about the design principles I could use to influence a user’s experience to make it better!
Something great I learnt was to transform technical requirements into meaningful, user-friendly experiences that solve real-world mobility challenges.
The NEXT mobile application concept represents more than just a solution. I believe it embodies a transformative approach to urban mobility.
By exploring the intersection of technology, user experience, and emotional design, NEXT demonstrates the potential to reimagine how people interact with public transportation systems worldwide.