• Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT)
Digital Design
Contribution
» Client acquisition
» UX research
» Design system
» UX design
» UI design
» Design for web
Role
Lead Designer
D8
SPT (Strathclyde Partnership for Transport) is the largest of Scotland’s seven Regional Transport Partnerships, supported by 12 member local authorities and the Scottish Government. They provide a myriad of services: Subway, subsidised bus travel, bus stations, and journey share — carrying approximately 13 million customers each year on the subway alone.
I began with a thorough discovery process to understand what a new website could do for them, both from a pragmatic digital functionality point of view, as well as considering their long-term strategy. Subsequently, I created a new design system in order to build their new website to WCAG AA accessibility standards and a key list of requirements, while including a bespoke journey planning interface, live timetables, disruption information and more.
Understanding purpose
As part of the early stages of this project, I spent time researching and gaining an understanding into what SPT was about, what they wanted to achieve, and most importantly how these goals could translate into an improved user experience on their website. The client had included some specific top-level requirements for the new website, so a key task was to interpret these into a set of actionable tasks going forward.
Understanding users
The nature of regional transport is having a large, diverse customer base. I took the approach of creating broad groups based on two qualifiers directly relevant to the business objectives identified previously. After visualising this information, I established that upwards mobility on both axes would be the ultimate aim, and subsequently got more granular with the personas.
Creating order
Identifying common needs and wants amongst these more granular user groups allowed me to organise and group the content into logical categories. I then ultimately fleshed this out into a full, considered sitemap in line with various stakeholders, ensuring that all content had a home.
More than just the Subway
This project followed a thorough process of pitching, workshopping and learning via prototyping, presenting concepts and rationale to stakeholders. This site was built to WCAG AA accessibility standards, including a new bespoke travel planner interface powered by Traveline Scotland.
Joining up journeys
There were many layers to this project, requiring a robust design system that would work comfortably across all the variations that were possible in a given A-to-B journey across the Strathclyde region. I adopted a mobile first design process, ensuring everything could be scaled up with ease.
