A public transportation facility for a pleasant transition between work and life
A public transportation facility for a pleasant transition between work and life
Contributing in industrial and interaction design, I was joined with expertises in interior design and interaction design to imagine how future offices feel like in the next 3-5 years. We analyzed the needs, user experience from time to space, and the physical to digital touch-points.
Project Management
User Research
System Thinking
Furniture Design
Space Analyzing
UI
Motion Design
Video Editing
Whiteboard
Adobe XD
Photoshop
Rhino
Keynote
Google Slides
Protopie
Adobe Premier
Irene Wang
Ryane Chen
Erica Luo
6-week
People are now wasting hours of their precious time on traffic jams during rush hours. Traffic conditions in metropolises, such as the Bay area, have become so bad that “rush hours” exist all day long.
More people are now choosing to move away from the cities and commute by public transits. In recent years, Caltrain, a cross-cities train in the Bay Area, has become an alternative commute choice for cars. Unfortunately, Caltrain in the present does not optimize commuters’ time either.
From 2007 to 2018, the proportion of people who choose to commute by car dropped from 85% to 77%.
In 2018, 38% of people across the United States spent more than one hour commuting to work each way.
More than 265,000 employees commute to San Francisco daily, while 27.4% of them live outside the city.
102,709 San Francisco residents, at the same time, go to work outside of the city.
21% of commuters say their current commute makes them feel "very" or "a little stressed".
MOBIWORK, a brand new Caltrain commuting experience built by Tesla, is born for the transition of life and work. Users will enjoy the futuristic interior, comfortable seats, and fresh snacks while having the freedom to work in a private booth or with colleagues in a meeting room.
1st floor: Semi-open Workplace
There is no need to make an appointment in the semi-open workplace, and passengers only need to pay for the ticket to enjoy the comfortable chair with a table.
We also provide luggage racks, restrooms, and bicycle storage points.
2st floor: Private booth & Meeting room
To help passengers away from distractions and enhance privacy, we placed a private booth. Meeting rooms are located on two sides of the carriage, offering an exclusive panel discussion venue.
We not only provide one-way and round-way purchases but give passengers to buy a pass.
Passengers can search for the service based on the time, train schedules, destinations, and special needs.
With simple steps, passengers can choose to purchase a ticket or reserve the workplace in advance.
Sharing option is available when passengers finished booking a meeting room. Passengers can call up the address book on the current screen, and send invitation to colleagues who work together, narrowing the distance between comrades.
Only buy a ticket, but still want to work individually after boarding?
Don't worry, we have displayed a tablet panel in the carriage, facilitating passengers to view and book workplace on the site.
1st floor: Bar Counter
Passengers can use the App to order meals before boarding the train in the morning and pick them up at Café.
In the evening, passengers can relax in the Café, or reserve the entire carriage as a party/annual meeting venue. At that time, the music and lighting equipment of the car can be customized.
2st floor: Common Area
If passengers think that the office compartment is too formal, they can choose to work or rest in the common area above the Café. This space also satisfies the transition between the ritual sense of work and rest that passengers need.
Passengers don't need to wait until they get on the train for meals. Whenever and wherever, passengers can order on our App in advance and then head to Café for pick-up after onboarding.
My team consists of industrial designers, interaction designers, and interior designers. Our design language and model are very different.
To cooperate more efficiently to complete the task, I have formulated a strict timeline and meticulous division of roles to ensure that each member can have excellent output within a limited time.
Mobile Office
When we received the Project topic as Future Office Design, I thought about commuting, an important link in the work system other than office itself.
To confirm the substance of the topic, we conducted research through questionnaires and interviews.
We determined our target users by conducted qualitative interviews with people who commute often.
"If I can let someone drive for me，I would love to work a little bit on the way to and from work."
"The Bart is very crowded, and I'm standing for most of the time. There is no place for me to work. My boss's laptop was stolen once."
"A table set on Caltrain "Bombadier" lets four people share the table and power sockets, but it run out fast, so my neck pains when I work in the carriage."
We further created a survey to see how passengers commute and their working habits, then targeted students and working professionals between the ages of 20 and 50 as our users.
More than 66% of respondents commute to and from get off work at least 5 days a week.
Nearly 50% of respondents have a one-way commute of at least 30 minutes.
86% of respondents commute by public transport.
The seats on public transportation are uncomfortable and space that lacks privacy.
Crowded carriage causes passengers to have the spirit of high tension often, which reduces the ride experience.
The majority of respondents hope to start/end office during their commute.
Brand: Caltrain & Tesla
Rather than design a new brand, we tend to be optimized based on the existing transport facilities on interior redesign and user experience design.
From the survey, we also learned that Caltrain, as public transportation in Bay Area, has a pivotal position. From San Francisco to Silicon Valley, the entire process only 1 hour 19 minutes with no traffic. As shown, big technology companies are along the way as well.
Reducing high tension when commuters driving during rush hour, Caltrain makes commuters feel less anxiety. Additionally, Caltrain plays a role in the energy conservation and environmental protection field.
Tesla, as a new energy technology giant, contributes in terms of "sustainability" coincide. The user experience of Tesla products is also worth learning.
We are full of passion and confidence in the integration of private technology companies and government services facility design.
We studied Caltrain from the aspects of size, structure, system structure, etc.
To maximize our products to be close to reality, we inspected the structure of the Caltrain car on the spot, learned more aspects of the car structure, and analyzed the relationship between the various plates in the Caltrain system.
After the analysis, we decided to keep the original structure and redesign the appearance and the position of doors and windows.
Storyboards help us understand the special needs of different users in the use of office space:
We can provide Private offices and meeting rooms in the carriage.
App should provide sharing function after booking a meeting room.
We simulated the journey map when the user fully used the product and discovered more potential opportunities:
The carriage needs to provide semi-open office areas, private offices, and meeting rooms.
The scheduled actions in the office must be able to be completed on-site.
The App should provide options for purchasing meals.
We carefully analyzed the use from space to time, physical to digital experience, and confirmed the design details.
Our design focus on privacy, safety and personalized sustainability.
· Natural light
· Semi-open and enclosed spaces
· Technological sense color / texture with
· Ticket purchase
· Space reservation
· Meal purchase
· Comfortable seat
· Office accessories
· Seat arrangement
* I designed a progress bar for the user, allowing users to purchase tickets and meals can check the current progress.
As Mobiwork cabin layout preserves the original structure of Caltrain, I carried out experiments entity to ensure that users get a comfortable experience while maximizing the use of space.
This is my first time play a project manager with designers from different fields. After carefully clarifying the timeline, I matched teammates' schedules, setting up the meeting while promising everyone's proficient outcome on time.
I was elected as the leader. I learned that interior designers didn't join the research process often, and we had different design languages, so I made a clear division of labor for the team members, making sure we were on the same page.
When I feel multiple skills are best practiced in a team, this project helped me to demonstrate myself as a problem solver from both physical and digital experience aspects.
-What happens if the passengers want to cancel or change their tickets? You may want to provide an option.
-On the bottom bar, there was no session for food purchasing. Now the pages are displayed as same as the ticket purchasing session.
-Our instructor encouraged us to think big. If we have a chance, we will design facilities like mobile gyms and shower rooms.
-The project ended so fast that we didn't have enough time to went through several rounds of user testing. I definitely want to receive feedback from users such as students, employees who commute often.