I would like to begin by thanking Daniel Philpott, Dr Kyle Boyd, Maíra Rahm, and Paul McCormack for their support throughout the my whole time on the course. In particular, I would like to thank Dr Kyle Boyd for his dedicated support throughout both modules this year. His encouragement has pushed and challenged me to produce the best work I can.
I have truly loved my time on this course, and am so thankful that this is what I chose to pursue for both my education and career. You have all helped to create an environment in which it is easy to learn and explore the world of design, and for that, I am so grateful.
I am incredibly pleased with what I have created over the past year, and it wouldn’t have been possible without each of you.
In Northern Ireland, we like to complain. A popular topic to complain about is Translink, and in particular, the quality of their digital services, or specifically their app. It’s fair enough, the Translink app offers public transport passengers a disjointed and clunky user experience for what should be very simple processes.
However, we’re not alone in this.
The truth of the problem is that in the UK, any city outside of the top five biggest are likely to have poor public transport digital services due to not having adequate budget or support to develop and maintain them.
So, this project sought to explore the question: how do we reduce digital inequality among transport networks that offer digital services?
Public Transport has always been an interest of mine. As someone who likes to travel, I am always amazed at the quality of other cities public transport services. While I appreciate that many of the things that make them great would not be possible in Belfast, I feel that the digital services and apps should be the bare minimum to excel at within a public transport, due to them having best practice that patterns that are applicable across any city.
Additionally, I feel that public transport is an important part of all our futures. Between the emissions caused by personal vehicles, and the rising cost of fuel. Having high quality digital services for public transport is more important than ever.
Metronet is a single, centralised platform for transport networks of any size to run, manage, and offer high quality digital services to their users.
Designed with best practice patterns, Metronet offers users a simple, intuitive, and holistic system that enables them plan journeys, pay for tickets, and navigate routes all within Metronet.
Unlike other off-the-shelf solutions that are bought by networks, rebranded, and published for users, Metronet is a single app from which users can access any public transport network. This removes the need for networks to develop and maintain their own app, and provides users with a seamless experience between cities and networks.
Metronet is a platform for public transport networks to work with, rather than a simple data aggregator. Metronet provides networks with the tools they need to manage their own network all within Metronet, through the Metronet Conductor platform.
I think a core strength of Metronet is how it incorporates other networks and their brands. I spent a lot of time considering how we convey where information is coming from, whether than be from Metronet or a transport network. I created a system in which a networks brand colours would be incorporated into the UI while still ensuring accessibility, and any information coming from the network would utilise their own colours to differentiate it.