Part 3: Find 3 examples of a product/project that you think are good examples of thoughtfully designed user experience. Be prepared to support your choices.
Here below are 3 examples I chose, which constitute for me good examples of thoughtfully designed user experience.
- MRT Ticketing station.
The first product I chose to talk about in this assignement is the MRT Ticketing Station.
To illustrate my point, I will compare this machine with the existing ones in the parisian metro (see second picture)
You can see on the left picture below the Singaporean MRT Ticketing Station and on the right picture an example of the Parisian Metro ticketing station.
The global impression that I have of this MRT machine is that it is very intuitive. In fact, I have never encountered any difficulty when using it. The instructions are clear and the user experience is all in all pleasant.
The large tactile screen is very appealing to the eye and the font size is big enough that you can read it from standing 1m away. The use of contrasting colors for the buttons to push on the screen makes it really easy to understand where to push.
Furthermore, the screen interface is very simple and clear, you have very few options (buy ticket vs. top-up / mode of payment etc..)
The ez link card physical emplacement is very easy to identify because it is situed just under eye level and it is protruding from the machine, you cannot miss it.
Plus, there are no physical buttons at all on this machine, on the contrary to the ticketing machines of the parisian metro which combines touch screen interface with physical buttons, which I find quite disorienting.
All these characteristics of the MRT ticketing machines contribute to make the top-up experience pleasant and very quick (less than 30 seconds in average).
2. Grab Smartphone application
The second product I will talk about in this assignement is the Grab application.
In my opinion it is very well designed because every information that the user needs is very visible,as you can see on the screenshot I took of the application.
On the homepage, you find every piece of information you need : adress of pick-up and drop-off, type of payment you wish to use, how much it will cost you, when it will arrive and also the kind of taxi/car you wish to order.
All in all, it takes you less than 30seconds to order the car you wish.
Furthermore, the system of suggestions when you type in the search box is very efficient as you can see in the screenshots below. In fact, the app shows you which drop-off location most people who took a taxi from your location chose. (in this case the airport)
In my opinion it is better designed than other similar applications (such as Uber for example), in that it is more straightforward, you do not have go to 3 different app pages to get the information you desire. Here just one page (the homepage) is sufficient.
3. McDonald’s ordering machine
The last product I am going to mention in this assignement is the McDonald’s ordering machine.
Although I am not a huge fan of McDonald’s, I am forced to admit that their order machine is quite effective and well designed.
The screen size is sufficient, because as you can see in the picture below, you can fit all the burgers in one, and have at the same time access to the other menus and to your current order at the bottom. Furthermore, the tactile screen is very responsive (a light touch is sufficient).
The Burger Menu on the ordering machine
The visual aspect of the interface is quite pleasing to the eye, especially for people that like to have images of what they eat before choosing. As the pictures are generally quite small on the overhead display, I find that it is more helpful to choose directly at the order machine. You can simply “browse” between the different menus to have access to all the burgers, rather than standing in front of the display and trying to figure out what to take.
The colors for the font, as well as the font size are spot on. You can read from a distance and the font chosen is pleasant to read.
Furthermore, I find that ordering at the Ordering Machine gives the user a quite reassuring feeling as you can control from A to Z everything you wish to order and what you will pay in the end. Thereby you avoid having a bad surprise and end up paying more than you thought.
In the end the experience of ordering at a McDonald’s ordering machine feels a lot like an interactive game, which I feel like is the experience that McDonald’s was going for. It gets you feel more involved in the preparation of your meal, especially if you use the feature for creating your own burger (see picture below).
