10 - Brains on a Train
Contents |
Group members
- Javier
- Zichuan
- Howard
- Becky
- Graham
Stage 1: Brainstorming
First we created a grid of who, what, where, why, when. We used post-its to get down our ideas. It quickly emerged from these discussions that commuters could be summed up as bored, lonely and an untapped resource. Passengers on trains, especially those commuting between 7-10am are highly educated, knowledgeable-business people, who are bored reading the newspaper.
Stage 2: Stories
From our grid we picked out four individual travellers and created their stories.
Story 1: Travice
Alma, aged 17, think she may have just broken up with her boyfriend. She wants some impartial advice. She uses our app to ask fellow passengers for their advice.
Story 2: Panic! On Time?
Thomas, aged 34, is on the way to give a pitch at an important meeting in London. The train is running late. He uses our app to find out what his options are when he gets to London - should he get on the tube or grab a cab? The app would also send his work colleagues an ETA message. On the way home, Thomas's wife could also check when to pick him up from the station.
Story 3: TrainWorks
Peter the Programmer, aged 55, bored on the train. Wants something to occupy his time. Wants something useful to do. He's a untapped resource. He would use our app to be given tasks, solve problems, give opinions etc (ie crowdsourcing).
Story 4: Meet in the buffet
Travellers from aboard want to meet the natives (or anyone for that matter!). They find the British too reserved to talk on public transport. They use our app to find like minded people on the same train and send them a message to meet-up in the buffet for a chat.
Stage 3: Designing our app
After lunch, we quickly assess our four stories and decide that TrainWorks is the strongest idea.
TrainWorks: Brains on a Train
Concept: Using the crowd to re-animate dead time. Essentially crowdsourcing bored commuters to solve problems and give feedback on various tasks in return for rewards.
The user journey
We sketched out the user's journey. Starting at the station, they would purchase a ticket. On the back would be a QR code. They would scan this with their smart phone, which would take them to the start screen.
They would be presented with tasks. These tasks could be marketing surveys, brainstorming, questionnaires, social science research and opinion gathering on local news (eg "Are you for or against the wind farm planned to be built outside your town?"). The tasks could also be grouped as easy to difficult. Users could choose to complete the tasks anonymously, or create a user account if they want to keep track of their completed tasks and be listed on a leader board to receive more rewards (eg entered into competitions, or receive feedback on what happened to the research).
From the task list, the user would choose one, which would take them to a page that would describe the task, the reward, how long it will take to complete, who else on the train is also working on task.
The tasks are simple yes/no, A,B or C format.
Once the task is complete, the user receives a reward. This could be another QR code that gets them a coffee and a muffin at their destination station cafe.
There could also be a website that lists all the tasks complete and what the outcomes where. Users could find out what their particular train voted for (eg. On the 7.10am train from Guildford to London, 60% of commuters are for the proposed wind farm). This closes the loop.
Business case
What's in it for task providers?
Task providers include commercial/business/market researchers, NGOs, academic researchers, newspapers.
Demographics on a particular train would be very easy to predict. The 7am train to London is going to be a very different group to the 10.30 train full of people with family rail cards. The QR codes would be used to issue tasks that are appropriate for the demographic. Organisations that used this service for their research would get high quality data. It could be qualitative as well as quantitative.
The data collection would be very quick. You could get instant feedback on a news story that broke that morning.
What's in it for users?
Users are bored reading the newspaper, they want something productive to do with their down time. This app gives them the option to give their opinions on social issues as well as commercial market research. We think they would soon get feed-up if it was just "Do you prefer Brand A to Brand B" type tasks.
The users receives an instant reward (coffee voucher). Or they can participate further by joining the community/leader board website.
What's in it for the train company?
Train tickets are very expensive and passengers don't like the persistent price increases. This service could be another income generating source for the train companies.
Presentation (video)
Watch the interim and final presentation:
