Two-way Communications in Transit: Lessons Learned From Designing Public Interactive Kiosks
Over the past few years, we have worked with transit agencies across the U.S. on how they can improve customer communications within transit stations. With increasing rider expectations and pressure on agencies to deliver accurate and timely information, a two-way communications platform between agency and rider has become increasingly essential. At Intersection, we have deployed more than 320 interactive kiosks, or Intersection-branded “IxNTouch” kiosks, across five major transit systems in the US, including Chicago CTA, Philadelphia SEPTA, New York MTA, New Jersey NJ Transit, and Santa Clara VTA.
By looking at interaction data and balancing quantitative with qualitative user research, we have taken the opportunity to reflect on lessons learned for the future.
When in Public, Go Big But Don’t Get Personal
Each interactive kiosk we deploy in transit stations has at least one 55 inch digital display, or two if it is double-sided. 55 inches is massive by touchscreen standards; about 3X the size of the largest personal touchscreen tablet or laptop screen. When someone interacts with the kiosk display, everyone around them can see what they’re doing. This semi-public interactive moment is something that users mentally adjust to — we know this and have worked to create a comfortable user experience.
Understanding the user’s state of mind when interacting with the kiosk impacts how we’ve designed the kiosk experience:
- We avoid asking users to perform highly intimate tasks in full view of others, such as inputting credit card numbers or home addresses.
- We avoid asking users to perform complex tasks that they may feel self-conscious doing, such as inputting long strings of text with a keyboard.
- We help users find the information they need quickly. We have found that between 23–40% of all primary navigation taps are on Service Status or Map & Directions modules. Riders can access these features within just three taps.
Touchscreens Don’t Always Need to be Touched
We’ve established many best practices for interactive features on our touchscreen kiosks: large inviting tap targets, accessible reach heights, clearly tappable buttons, and more. But the kiosks are also designed to play a non-interactive role. The way we see it, touchscreen kiosks are essentially regular digital displays, supercharged with the added aspect of interactivity. So in the non-interactive mode, we’ve made it so that users may view the displays from afar in case they cannot or do not want to touch the screens.
We call this the passive mode. In this mode, content on the displays rotates between train arrival times, messaging from the transit agency, and advertising. Kiosks can display weather information, service delays, and alerts that transit agencies can push to relevant stations in real time. Compared to interactive information, content designed for this passive viewer mode requires larger and more concise information for a 5-second glance.
Even as we provide useful content in passive mode, the interactive features are still accessible. In fact, nearly 13% of user interactions are with detailed interactive content (ie: users tap on specific transit alerts to get more information). The key is a good balance between interactive and passive content.
Customer Interactions Change Based on Context
I’ve touched upon the features and content available on the kiosk software, but an important factor for agencies to engage their customers successfully is finding the optimal location to place their kiosks. In the initial phase before deployment, we work with transit agencies to optimize kiosk placement. We ensure that the orientation and location makes it easy and inviting for people to use. Once the kiosks are in the ground, we look at the data from user interactions to inform us on where people are looking for information, and what information they are looking for.
We’ve found that in transit stations, customers are engaging with kiosks on platforms up to 6.5X more than in other locations such as areas before the fare gate or foyers where customers are transferring between services. People might have the highest dwell times on station platforms because they are either figuring out their transit routes, or seeing when their train will arrive. While customers who know where they are going are often just passing through foyers to get to their next train or exit the station.
Based on user data, we see that on average, customers engage most with the Arrivals information, followed by Wayfinding, and then System Statuses and Alerts. But the engagement patterns vary at different locations within a station. Before entering the fare gate areas, customers are more likely to look at Alerts because they want to know about their train statuses before committing to enter the station. As they move through the transfer corridors on the way to the platforms, customers tend to interact with the Mapping and Wayfinding features, which is consistent with the purpose of these spaces as key decision making points for where to go. Finally, on the platforms, Arrivals information gets the most engagement.
Studying this data provides us with insights for how we can curate even more contextual information on different groups of kiosks. Through hyperlocal content targeting features of our transit communications software, IxNConnect, agencies can push relevant information to the right kiosks as people commute throughout their day. Over the longer term, data can inform the distribution of the kiosk hardware. After all, kiosk placements aren’t unchanging things, but can be dynamic and adjustable based on past learnings. By comparing kiosk usage to station ridership figures, we identify which units are high- and low-performing, and earmark low-performing units as possible candidates for relocation.
By understanding how and where customers interact with transit information, we are able to work with transit agencies to optimize and improve their customer communications. Whether it is to refine the behavior of the digital Arrivals ticker on the passive mode of the display or place a kiosk in a more optimal location for interactive use, we continue to adapt to new cities and customer needs to provide transit agencies and their customers the best possible experience in transit.
