Public Transportation

Developing a Smart mobility MVP for public transit

Custom Mobile App

Summary

Designed a user-friendly mobile app to simplify public transit navigation and improve urban mobility experience.

Skills

• User research
• Wireframing
• UX/UI design
• Prototyping
• Interaction design
• Accessibility (WCAG)

Development Team

• Product owner
• Business analyst
• 4 mobile engeneers
• 1 designer

Role

Senior UX/UI designer

What?

Transforming commuting experience

Existing public transport apps in Sweden 🇸🇪 caused frustration due to unreliable arrival times, complex trip planning, and poor feature discoverability—leading to missed connections and inefficient journeys.

Our goal was to make daily commutes seamless, stress-free, and efficient. To solve this, we built a user-friendly Smart mobility app MVP that: improved real-time tracking for accurate arrival predictions & Simplified trip planning with an intuitive, streamlined flow.

Why?

The problem we needed to solve

102 user surveys revealed three major problems:

Unreliable arrival predictions

Commuters reported discrepancies between estimated and actual arrival times, leading to missed connections and frustration.

Poor feature discoverability

Users couldn't locate key app functionalities, limiting the effectiveness of existing solutions and causing frustration.

Complex trip planning

Existing interfaces required too many steps for trip planning, with complicated navigation causing users to abandon the process.

“

I never know if the bus will arrive when the app says it will. I've missed important meetings because of this, and it's incredibly frustrating to stand in the cold not knowing when—or if—my bus will come.

— Agnes, 32, Regular Commuter

Who we built this for?

Our target users

Our research identified commuters aged 25-45 as the most impacted by transit inefficiencies. To address their needs, we created three personas:

• Astrid (Daily Commuter) → Needs reliable ETAs for work travel
• Agnes (Professional) → Struggles with complicated trip planning
• Johan (Occasional Traveler) → Finds navigation confusing

These insights shaped our design decisions, usability testing, and feature prioritization.

Was it more than just UX?

Where product thinking meets impact

As the sole designer on a lean MVP team, I treated UX not as a layer, but as the product’s architecture. I framed early feature scope through user pain points tied to adoption and retention risk, shaped system logic for future scalability, and ensured the foundation could scale across mobility services — even after I transitioned off the project. My focus was on building product logic, not just pages.

How?

My approach

Instead of following a rigid process, I navigated this project through an iterative workflow that evolved as we discovered more about user needs. After establishing the foundation with comprehensive research, I moved forward with a collaborative, user-centered approach where design decisions were validated through testing.

Each design choice — from layout to feature grouping — was tied to product goals such as lowering drop-off during trip planning and improving daily adoption rates.

Market analysis

Research & Analysis

Analyzed transit apps like Såretrafiken, Movit, and SL Journey Planner to identify usability gaps.

Insights

Identifying problems & Challenges

In a focused team workshop, we analyzed survey data from 102 users to identify key pain points. Through affinity mapping and prioritization, we transformed feedback into actionable goals and established clear success criteria for our design solutions.

Wireframing

Layout & Structure development

I created detailed wireframes in Figma to establish the app's structure, focusing on intuitive navigation and feature placement. These blueprints prioritized real-time tracking visibility and simplified trip planning to directly address key user pain points.

Accessibility

Inclusive design

I prioritized WCAG AA compliance throughout development, using Figma plugins for contrast checking to ensure usability for all commuters.

Consistency

Design system

Establishing a token-based design system early enabled consistency, dark mode support, and simplified collaboration between design and development teams.

Validation

Testing prototypes

A/B testing revealed 35% higher satisfaction for the optimized design.

Design outcome

Final reslult

The result? A modern MVP app designed to make trip planning faster, smoother, and frustration-free. Watch it in app promo video.

Delivered value

🚀 Positive impact

While I wasn’t part of the final launch phase, the design system, usability insights, and feature prioritization I delivered set the stage for a scalable and user-centered release.

Faster route
planning

Users took 63s → 45s to plan a trip in usability tests.

More effective feature discovery

Streamlined menu improved trip-planning feature access.

Faster & scalable design iteration

Standardized components cut UI update time by 28%.