Sleeper Routes is a website that aims to provide travellers with an easy and understandable space to find night train routes throughout Europe.
It's aims is to enable rail passengers to view all the available sleeper routes so that they can make informed travel decisions
This was a solo project where I acted as the Product Designer, UX Researcher and the Product Owner
Competitive Audit, User Interviews, Personas and User Stories, Wireframing, Prototyping and Unmoderated Usability Tests
Sleeper trains are an old-fashioned but effective means of transportation throughout Europe. Due to challenging and the hard-to-interrupt manner of timetables, bad digital UI and poor language translation, many sleeper trains are under-utilised by travellers
For a more detailed overview of my process I would encourage you to read my Medium article attached below.
Additionally, and for readers who are visually impaired, I have taken the liberty of creating a video where I go through my project.
Recent infrastructure investments have been made to expand the continent's rail night train network both in capacity and geography scope.
This has been done to increase the number of travellers using the services and create a better experience for the 1.4 million users already utilising the network.
- Allows for direct booking on the platform for reservations
- Timetime is not limited to night trains but all cross-regional services
-The website is not responsive and is limited to a format that is 1275px in width
- Intuitive visual display with nice use of CTAs
- Ability to view past trips
- Lack of solid singular focus on the app
- Fresh, visually appealing and intuitive layout
- Big picture (system-wide viewpoint) and specific station view
- Only accessible on iOS and Andriod devices
After discovering an area in need of improvement (having personally experienced difficulty in travelling and planning night trains in my own travels), the project proceeded onto the research phase.
I reached out to the extensive and active interrailing community on Facebook. I received user feedback from my post within groups such as "Interrail Travellers" and "Backpacking Europe".
I was lucky enough to interview two users of differing demographic backgrounds for some further insights into what they would like in a night train platform.
User Flow for the route reservation flow within the website
Experience of a user going through the route reservation flow based on research and interview insights
Having collected a number of user insights, both in a moderated and unmoderated setting, the next step was to create a design that mirrored the needs of users.
Looking on to the final product, I was really keen to lay down the initial groundwork for the overall design. For this, I developed a wireframe, which was later iterated into a high-fidelity design and interactive prototype all while adhering to core UI styling principles.
Designed in Whimsical
Below is a overview of the core UI styles that governed the design process of Sleeper Routes (Grid layout, Colour Palette and Type)
Collection of frames from the high fidelity design process
Progressing onto the high-fidelity portion of the project, I employed a design that evoked progress while keeping functionality in mind.
This was done by employing blues and greens to evoke a sense of movement, all while keeping the user insights in mind and inputting it into the design.
End product of the Sleeper Routes home screen before going to the developers for construction
After the design of the platform I went ahead with gaining further user insights into the project.
Whether it be the visual layout, unintentional pain points or general user frustrations, I hoped that through conducting several unmoderated usability tests any user difficulties with the platform would be uncovered.
Both users highlighted issues with finding the wallet feature and preferred a link to this through the accounts portal.
Mauro outlined that he was having difficulty distinguishing the core function of the platform from the homepage.
After many iterations and building upon user feedback, a final prototype was ready for release.
See the below for a full overview
One deficit of the project was the lack of clarity on the intention of the product. If/when later iterations of the website go into development, a more singularly focus will be taken.
