HippiGo: Designing a seamless ecosystem for Urban Transit Efficiency
Designed a multi-modal transit platform that simplifies everyday commuting by combining real-time journey planning with a seamless digital payment experience.
Full case study in behance link below.
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The Challenge
Public transportation should be one of the easiest ways to travel, but for many commuters it becomes frustrating before the journey even begins. People often rely on multiple apps to plan routes, book last-mile transportation, track arrivals, and complete payments. Constantly switching between different services creates unnecessary friction and makes travelling feel more stressful than it should. Our goal was simple: Design one connected experience that helps users move through their entire journey with confidence.
Understanding the Users
Before exploring solutions, I wanted to understand how people actually travel every day. I conducted interviews, contextual observations, and journey mapping sessions with commuters and transport operators to identify where the biggest frustrations occurred with 25 Daily Commuters 10 Transport Operators Instead of focusing only on the app, I studied the complete journey from leaving home until reaching the destination. This helped uncover pain points that weren't immediately obvious during interviews alone.
1. Paying across different transport modes
Commuters frequently switched between digital payments, physical tickets, and cash depending on the transport they were using. This interrupted the travel experience and created unnecessary confusion.
2. Families needed better ways to manage travel expenses.
Parents wanted an easy way to allocate travel money to their children while still keeping track of how the balance was being used.
Emotional Mapping
Before jumping into solutions, I wanted to understand how people actually felt during their journey. By mapping the emotions, motivations, and frustrations of both commuters and drivers, I was able to identify the moments where design could have the greatest impact.
Transport Lover (Commuter)
- Love for travel
- Public Transport with friend
- Ticketing and easy of access
- Economic friendly
- Convenient for multiple trips
- Easy to use
- Reduce crowd in busy route
- Smooth Journey
- To reduce crowd and reach place
- Have to walk long distance to bus stop
- Hard to carry the exact amount for ticket
- Hard to board and travel
Passionate Driver (Operator)
- Less Profit
- Satisfying family needs is difficult
- Couldn't afford anything he wants
- He feels liberated and independent
- This job brings respect
- Family Support
- He has positive influence in life
- Willing to save for future
- He is ready to face anything
- Paying bills is getting harder
- Environment is supportive and friendly
- Private Owners treat him while giving tips
Designing the Solution
To solve the challenges identified during research, I designed a connected platform for both commuters and transport operators. It supports real-time route planning while also providing offline access to essential features, making the experience more dependable across different travel scenarios.
For commuters
For commuters, every second matters. The experience was designed to minimise unnecessary taps and make key information easy to access. Whether planning a route, tracking a journey, or making a payment, every interaction was built to feel quick, intuitive, and dependable—even when internet connectivity is unreliable.
- Authentication & Profile Initiation
- Sign up → Setup Secure Core Profile → Core Interface Initiation.
- Online System Execution
- Ping real-time positioning & evaluate immediate parameters.
- Compute and aggregate appropriate cross-modal travel combinations.
- Route selection intent: 'Immediate Routing' or 'Scheduled Allocation'.
- System Handshake: Driver Validation → Route Active → Transit Complete.
- Offline Resilience Mode
- Fallback query to local system files for static timetable tracking.
- Hardware Layer: Physical near-field hardware execution at access gates.
- Automatic dynamic billing synchronization on next connected terminal node.
The Driver Model (Supply Side)
The operator dispatch layout focused purely on reducing user decision fatigue during manual operation, organizing components to emphasize strict binary actions.
- Operator Verification & Status
- Secure Verification Entry → Set Profile Status → System Active Monitor.
- Dispatch Logic Pipeline
- Dynamic Queue processing: Populate 'Available Requests' metrics.
- Binary Logic Switch: Interaction swipe gesture to accept or bypass request.
- Fulfillment: Client Position Tracking → Check-In → Route Complete → Auto-Ledger Balancing.
The Experience
After defining the user experience, I focused on building a design system that would keep the product consistent as it grew. From typography and colour palettes to reusable components and spacing guidelines, every element was designed to create a familiar, intuitive experience while making future updates faster and easier.
Design System Foundations
Every visual decision was made to support commuters who are often on the move. Clear typography, a restrained colour palette, and a consistent layout work together to make information easy to scan and interactions effortless—even in busy travel environments.
Typography
Aptos
Color Palette
Grid Framework
- Viewport 428 x 926 px
- Columns 4 Column
- Type Centered
- Gutter 12px
- Column 81px
Shared Wallet
One of the most meaningful insights from the research was that commuting isn't always an individual experience. Families often travel together or support one another financially. This led to the Shared Wallet feature, where a primary user can securely allocate travel funds to family members, monitor usage, and manage expenses from a single account.
The result
One of the most meaningful insights from the research was that commuting isn't always an individual experience. Families often travel together or support one another financially. This led to the Shared Wallet feature, where a primary user can securely allocate travel funds to family members, monitor usage, and manage expenses from a single account.
Task Success Metric Completion
Measured across multi-modal transit allocations.
Ecosystem Balance Volume
Observed following launch of shared profile infrastructure.
What I Learned
This project reinforced the importance of designing for real-world conditions, not just ideal scenarios. Supporting offline journeys made the experience more dependable, but it also highlighted the operational challenges of maintaining additional hardware. As a next step, I would explore NFC-enabled mobile wallets and other native device capabilities to simplify the experience while reducing infrastructure costs.