OC Streetcar

The OC Streetcar is a metro line in Orange County, California, that began operations in 2022. The Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) needed to help the county find an easy and helpful way to view updates on things like construction, lane closures, reduced parking and Streetcar routes. OCTA was interested in in taking on this challenge with an app for their users, were the users could view news and updates regarding the OC Streetcar. The streetcar will operate between the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center to a new Harbor Transit Center in Garden Grove, offering a link to downtown Santa Ana, one of Orange County's largest centers for employment, arts, and entertainment, as well as nearby residential neighborhoods, parks, and trails.

Objective:

Provide information to the people that commute and would be affected most by the OC Streetcar with things like construction progress, daily traffic impacts, road closures, utility work etc.Once I had a good understanding of main objectives and the users that would be needing this app, I began to create 2 personas of what would be considered everyday riders of public transportation in Orange County. This would give me a clearer idea of the needs this app would cater and help me design a better experience for the users.  

Research:

After reviewing the survey results that were sent to the residents of Orange County, I was able to have a better understanding how the great amount of residents travel and with this information I could hypothesis better how users would use the app.  

User Personas:

I created two user personas to try get a deeper understanding of users needs. With a deeper look in to the point of view of the users, their expectations, concerns and motivations. I would gain a different perspective when starting to brainstorm and throughout the whole process. From the research and personas it was clearer to see that the target audience of this app would be residents that cared very much about how traffic and parking would change before, during and after construction. Many design decisions were made thinking with these users in mind.  

 

Results:

After finalizing the designs and flows, we outsourced the development, publishing, and management of the app to an external team. Although the initial feedback for the published app was positive, we started encountering several persistent bugs over time. I was involved in the project until the final export.

Prototype: