After being accepted into the UX design program at General Assembly I was prompted to get out and start doing some observational user research.
I am fascinated by watching people interact with public spaces and systems, so I decided to clear my Saturday afternoon schedule and head down to Union Square Station. The goal? Observe how people use (or don’t use) the MTA subway information kiosks- those big bulky machines intended to help passengers find their way around the city.
When I got there, I posted up between two of the touch-screen displays and waited…
To be honest, I didn’t expect anyone to interact with the kiosks at all. I assumed everyone just used some kind of mobile app to find their way around the city these days.
Not true.
Over the course of the next 45 minutes, I witnessed the following events:
- 5 different groups of people attempted to interact with the kiosks
- 4/5 of those groups left the kiosks and proceeded to ask a human being for directions instead
- 2 separate people approached me directly and asked how to get to Midtown
The key takeaway here is that the information kiosks successfully assisted exactly 1/7 (15%) of the travelers that I observed.
Building and installing public works projects like these kiosks must require a tremendous amount of effort. I can only imagine the number of user scenarios, technical considerations, stakeholders, and bureaucratic hurdles that must be accounted for. With all of these constraints, it’s easy to see how system usability might be compromised, or at least de-prioritized.
I wasn’t totally surprised by the apparent lack of usability.
I was surprised however by the overall engagement rate with the kiosks.
In the time span of 45 minutes, 7 groups of people consulted either the kiosk or myself with a question about directions.
That’s an average of 1 logistical question every 6 minutes, or 10 questions an hour, or 240 questions a day!
That’s a lot of frustration… and all in just one area of one subway station in New York City.
For me, considering the scale of this problem evokes a few emotions. It’s illuminating, it’s disheartening, and it’s strangely exciting.
Illuminating because I was totally ignorant of the fact this problem even existed.
Disheartening because it made me realize how many people struggle to navigate the subway system every day, and how these kiosks might ironically pile on even more frustration.
Exciting because there is an opportunity to improve the subway navigation experience for tourists, out-of-towners, and commuters. We can definitely do better than a 15% success rate!
When I observed someone visibly struggling with a kiosk, I felt compelled to step in and provide the traveler with better assistance. I helped one dude find his way to Midtown. I shepherded a group of students to the right platform so that they could visit Pratt Institute. I gave another guy directions to Times Square.
It felt good to lend a helping hand, and by the numbers, my verbal assistance helped more people solve their problems than the software tool did.
This short observational study served as a humbling reminder to make human needs the #1 priority on projects. It’s so important to stay focused on the real problems and always reason outwards from first principles in order to create feasible design solutions.
I can only imagine how many simple and amazing service solutions we can create for our cities if we stay true to those principles.
