ORCA+ Loyalty Program
My Roles
Project Manager (3 weeks)
UX Designer
UX Researcher
Tools
Figma
Adobe Animate
Google Suite
Project Timeline
10 weeks (April - June 2020)
About
For my Senior Capstone, myself and three other students designed a loyalty program to help incentivize socioeconomically disadvantaged people to ride public transportation in Seattle, Washington. With the help of our sponsors, we produced high-fidelity mockups, marketing materials, and program infrastructure documentation.
Sponsors: King County Metro, UW CoMotion, Seattle Department of Transportation, and Sound Transit
Note: Decision making and evaluations in this project were impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.
Research Methods
Literature Review
During the initial phase of our research, our team analyzed documents and studies on efforts to incentivize ridership and promote transit equity in Seattle and other cities such as Chicago and Indianapolis.
Semi-Structured Interviews
My team conducted four semi-structured interviews with practitioners in the public transportation field. All participants were connected to our user group either through working in transportation or other public health positions. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, all of the interviews were conducted via Zoom.
Research Findings
After reviewing literature and conducting interviews, my capstone team compiled a list of themes in a “code book.” The code book allowed us to write brief memos about our user group’s pain points and challenges with public transportation.
Reliance on Transit
Our interviewees shared many reasons why people in vulnerable populations are reliant on public transit; from getting to work, grocery shopping, medical appointments, social services & resources, and looking for housing. One interviewee explained that many people she interacts with rely on transit because owning a car is too costly. For some of those, even the cost of a monthly pass is too expensive. She also shared that many people in the communities she serves are homeless and ride outside of the city in order to find safe places to live.
Inaccessible Transit
There are several ways in which transit can be inaccessible to vulnerable populations. The most predominant issues with public transit are the cost and language barriers. Some of the other examples we found of inaccessibility to transit came from bus run times (some people in the population work odd hours), bus stop locations, or even getting signed up for an ORCA card. Getting an ORCA card (or a reduced fare card) could be inaccessible for some, requiring them to go to a physical location or get documentation.
Multiple Modes of Outreach
While there was some overlap between our participants’ jobs, they each talked about their own unique modes of outreach. One of the more important aspects of their jobs was making sure that this population has the information and help that they need. This required them to try and reach out in as many ways as possible, including working with multiple local organizations, putting ads in magazines, newspapers, and online material. Throughout our interviews, the subject of using paper materials (flyers, brochures, posters, etc.) came up frequently. Our interviewees found that this was an effective way to communicate with vulnerable populations. Part of the reason this type of communication works well is because this community often makes use of public services & social agencies as well as academic institutions. (DSHS, HEN, colleges). In addition to posting material on transit vehicles, partnering with these agencies to display information that people can take was a low maintenance, low cost way of distributing information that would get to the people that need these resources the most.
Design Requirements
For our first ideation session, we wanted to outline exactly what our rewards program would look like including what it can and can’t do. We broke up our session with three key concepts: functions, constraints, and incentives. For each of these parts, we individually wrote down our ideas and then regrouped to discuss them and make a combined list. The following is a description of each concept and our agreed upon ideas.
Functions
Way to track rewards (points)
Easily view status in rewards system
View and redeem rewards
Easily communicable
Have multiple information outlets (online/posters/etc.)
Incentives
Free or discounted rides
24 hour public transport pass
Fare capped monthly pass
Onboarding discount / preloaded amount
Constraints
Translating across multiple languages
Accessibility
Initial costs
Simplicity of onboarding process
Not relying on an app or internet connection
Low-Fidelity Mockups
Based on the results of both brainstorm sessions, we designed these mockups to help visualize parts of our rewards system in a more concrete form. The first three mockups capture a few main concepts from our brainstorms including the text system interactions, integration with ORCA kiosks and methods to view and redeem awards. The final mockup is a storyboard that unites these concepts through a short story scenario.
Text Message Mockup
To accommodate users who may not have access to smartphones, we designed an automated text messaging system to inform users about transit-related events and to give users a channel to engage with the ORCA rewards system. Through this phone interaction, users can easily manage their rewards and receive information about free-riding events that occur. The text message system can serve as a portal for users to manage their points and can serve as a contact mechanism between partnered transit organizations.
ORCA Kiosk Screens
As users may not always have access to smartphones, we wanted to design a way for users to access their accounts in a physical space. We designed screens that would be integrated into the ORCA ticket kiosks at major bus and light rail hubs. These will allow users to check their point balance, as well as redeem their rewards.
ORCA Tap Machine Screens
When entering a bus, or before entering the light rail or a street car, you must tap your ORCA card on a machine which takes your fare (unless you’re getting a paper ticket or paying by cash). These machines flash unique lights and make unique sounds depending on if it’s taken your fare, if your balance is low, or you don’t have enough for a ride.
Storyboard
Our final mockup was a storyboard depicting a user interacting with the rewards system through an ORCA kiosk and tap machine. The purpose of this 7 panel storyboard is to illustrate the flow of a possible interaction of someone using the system during an average day commute. The panels show a user viewing their rewards status, choosing a reward and redeeming it before tapping their ORCA card and boarding the train. While this is just one way to interact with the rewards system, we thought capturing the use of the existing ORCA infrastructure would create a better context when presenting to our sponsors. It also presents a scenario that many transit users are somewhat familiar with.
Usability Test Findings
From our four usability tests, we compiled seven generalized themes pertaining to the efficacy, usability, and practicality of our rewards program. Finding number one coincides with the most critical result from our usability studies, while the last ranked finding corresponds to the least critical result. Our findings informed our future design decisions as we iterated on our mockups and program structure.
Users do not want to receive texts displaying rewards they are not eligible for
Users want the tap machine to tell them when a reward has been applied, not when it’s available.
Users like the idea of the tap machine informing them of a reward.
Users prefer simplicity in kiosk screens, this makes it easier to complete tasks.
Users wanted clearer scenes in the storyboard depicting a user viewing and redeeming a reward.
The storyboard successfully conveyed a logical and easily understandable scenario of a user interacting with the rewards program.
The text messaging system is clear, concise, and possesses an appropriate tone for an automated system.
ORCA+ Posters
With feedback from our sponsors, we decided to create an informational poster meant to describe how to use the ORCA ticket kiosk to look up and apply rewards. After discussing it more as a group, we decided to additionally create a second poster that would serve as an advertisement for the program as a whole. As we drafted the posters, we decided on a name for our concept: ORCA+ Loyalty Program.
Informational Poster
This poster was designed as an informational guide on how to interact with the ORCA+ program through an ORCA ticket machine. Like the advertising poster, we also wanted this guide to convey the steps of using ORCA+ as quickly and simply as possible. In this case, distilling that information into three steps was the most effective way to achieve that.
The steps featured in the poster are: How to access the ORCA+ rewards program from the main kiosk screen, a brief description of what users can do with ORCA+ in the kiosk and how users will activate/use their rewards after applying one to their card from the kiosk. These steps cover the primary functions of using the ticket machine to go from checking your rewards status to actually using a reward.
This poster would ideally be displayed near these ticket machines so that users may refer to them as they navigate the system. The poster can also act as another form of advertisement as users who have not heard of the program may be prompted to learn more about it.
Advertising Poster
The goal of this poster is to draw people in while being as simplistic as possible. We decided on the slogan “More rides, more rewards.” The rest of the poster echoes this sentiment. The main part of the poster says in three different sections “Sign Up Now, Ride Transit, Earn Rewards!” At the bottom of the poster there’s text that says “See if you qualify today!” with a phone number and a website to visit.
Ideally, this poster would be mounted in a community center, or partnering organization with our sponsors, King County Metro, Sound Transit, or Seattle Department of Transportation. Using their wide social network we could spread awareness of the new program.
From our earlier research, we determined that local organizations and community centers are hubs for vulnerable populations. They receive information about benefits they qualify for from these partners, which is why they are a perfect location for our posters to be displayed.
Iterating on Low-Fidelity Mockups
ORCA Kiosk Screens
Users expressed that they liked the simplicity of the information on the original screens, however navigating separate pages to compare points earned with the point cost of rewards and to redeem rewards was unnecessary.
Our revised display was simplified to one screen with three pop-up windows. The screen shows the current ORCA card balance as well as points earned. It also includes a scrollable list of rewards in ascending order of point value. Each reward has an information button next to it. When this is pressed, a pop-up window describes the reward and gives the user options to either select the reward or cancel. When a reward is selected a confirmation window pops up and when the user confirms that they would like to select this reward, a final pop-up window lets them know that they have redeemed their points and how the reward will be activated
User clicks on “48 Hour Pass.”
User confirms reward redemption.
Reward is applied and ready to use.
User no longer has enough points to redeem any rewards.
ORCA Tap Machine Screens
As discovered in our usability test, users were confused about if their reward had been used or if they had just earned a reward. We decided to change the tap machine screen to only let a user know if they had just used a reward. Our high-fidelity mockup of the tap machine shows this, saying at the top “REWARD ACTIVATED” and showing that they either paid a discounted price or they didn’t pay anything for their ride.
Final Program Structure
In addition to the visual mockups, our team created a comprehensive list of recommendations for implementing ORCA+ Loyalty Program into the existing ORCA transit program in Seattle. Using our research to inform our design decisions, we documented the infrastructure required to make ORCA+ a reality for our sponsors.
The final ORCA+ Loyalty Program structure includes information on:
ORCA+ Accounts
Rewards and Reward Tracking
Viewing and Accessing Rewards
Onboarding
Outreach
