How to utilize bus stops to create more green and more humanistic city environments?
Spring 2019
Team: Valentina Ramírez & Genís Frigola
My role was to build a physical prototype (bus stop design) & create a service concept.
Process
The project followed the human-centered design process with user research and testing.
- Future insight using megatrend cards – defining the context.
- Gathering information about future dreams and hopes people have regarding the urban environment – defining the design brief.
- Ideating solutions.
- Building a prototype.
- Testing the design and reporting of the findings.
Megatrends chosen from Sitra’s megatrend cards
- The sustainability crisis will become more and more acute
- Our understanding of the globe’s ecological capacity is increasing
- Good enough is sufficient
We chose cities as the context since we found that a fruitful platform for development.
Participating citizens
We set up a wishing wall (table) to a city library for one week. In the big paper, we asked people to write or draw what is their dream city like. In addition to the paper, we set up a digital survey with the same question. Altogether we gathered about 300 responses.
Based on the answers we narrowed down the goal for our design:
- Sustainability – making something good for the planet
- Nature – feeling close to nature
- Cosy – feeling comfortable and enjoying the time in a city
- Community – people can interact with each other
The primary goal: to create a positive waiting experience for citizens.
The first design
In this idea, a bus stop acts as a service point and oasis in a city. The idea combines physical elements and virtual services enabling affective computing.
Elements:
- Large screen and entertainment combined with an emotion-sensing system
- Interactive bus tracking and route maps
- Glass structure for visibility
- Green element
- Wood instead of plastic
Testing
To test how green elements affect the experience, we made two versions and tested those with a semi-structured interview and shortened AttrakDiff questionnaire.
AttrakDiff showed that the green element creates the experience we aimed at the bus stop.
Prototyping
Ideation of a better bus stop design was based on the interviews. The most important characteristics of the design were openness and an ability to involve green elements in it.
Testing the prototype & getting feedback
The final design
The second testing showed that the concept meets well the goals set for this project. Points to evolve are the shape (oval instead of round), accessibility and creating common rules.