This article discusses using Design Thinking to develop a new feature for the Citymapper transit app. It walks through the Design Thinking process, which includes empathizing with users to understand their needs, defining the problem, ideating potential solutions, prototyping a solution, and testing it with users.
Specifically, the author conducted interviews with public transit users to understand pain points like having to purchase multiple tickets through different channels. This informed redefining the challenge as making tickets easier to purchase using mobile. Potential solutions were brainstormed and one was prototyped – allowing users to purchase all needed tickets for a trip in one tap directly in the app. The article explains each step and includes screenshots of a prototype interface. Overall, it promotes Design Thinking as a user-centered process for creatively solving problems through understanding user needs.
