Native apps for Britain’s largest rail operator
First Rail is one of the largest rail operators in the UK, carrying more than 750,000 passenger daily.
I worked with Future Platforms to redesign the iOS app for several of the operators owned by First Rail. For this case study I will show work done for South Western Rail.
Alongside the UX/UI design, there was also a requirement to create a design system that could be shared across the different operators.
Project type
iOS app
Industry
Transport
Role
Senior UX/UI
Date
2018 - 2019
Users would often book tickets in a hurry, so this process was designed to be more efficient by reducing the number of clicks and displaying as much information as possible on the screen.
The goal here was to help users to find, select and purchase a ticket for their journey in as few steps as possible. After purchase, a ticket was loaded into a digital wallet.
The live times feature helps users find departing and arriving trains at a station of their choice. I went through several iterations to find the optimal way to present information.
This flow was redesigned to help improve the sign in and registration experience. Users are able to sign into their account or create a new one with greater speed and ease.
Users are able to purchase season tickets on the go and add them to their account for use when travelling.
The smart card purchasing journey was redesigned to help users find, purchase and add smart cards to their digital wallet on the go.
I created a Design System that would be shared accross First Rail's other train operators, such as Great Western Rail and Transpennine Express.
The design system included typography, colours, buttons, components and accessibility guidelines.
After the release of the newly designed app, we observed an increase in the iOS app store from an average of 2 stars to 4.5 stars
After the release of the newly designed app, we observed an increase in the overall customer satisfaction rating of the app at around 70%
I enjoyed working on this project and learned a lot about native iOS design, building re-usable components and creating design systems in Figma.
I felt one of the biggest challenges was that the client did not allocate enough time or budget for user research in the early stages of the project.