Transit Pulse AX, Erik Smith
Real-time community transit app. Built from 5 user interviews and 19 screener responses.
The Problem
Official transit apps provide GPS coordinates and scheduled arrival times. What they don't provide is ground truth: whether the bus is actually moving, whether the stop is safe at this hour, whether there's room to board, or whether the arrival time reflects reality at all.
The Solution
Transit Pulse layers community-verified reality on top of official data. Riders submit live conditions like vehicle location, occupancy, safety vibe, and cleanliness. The schedule is a suggestion. The community is the source of truth.
Research
Self-directed. January to February 2026.
- 19 screener survey respondents. Ghost buses ranked as the #1 stress factor, "Is it actually coming?" the most-wanted piece of information.
- 5 recorded 30-minute user interviews with participants recruited from the screener.
- 4 personas developed, each grounded in a real participant with a documented feature priority ranking.
User Personas
Names changed for privacy. Each grounded in a real interview participant.
- Nadia W., 28, Psychology Student: Verified stop safety and lighting data, and low-density car selection.
- Marcus S., 29, Substitute Teacher: Real-time location verification from other riders and contributor reputation.
- Theo D., 28, Instructional Designer: Live car density before the train arrives and a baseline travel time.
- Dana H., 40, Graphic Designer: Block-by-block GPS tracking and stop safety ratings from other riders.
Thematic Analysis: 5 Pain Clusters
Synthesized from affinity mapping across all 5 interviews.
- The Trust Gap
- The Limbo Trigger
- Sensory and Social Load
- The Productivity Extension
- Accountability and Professional Impact
Design Decisions
- Pivot 1: The schedule is a suggestion: Research proved SEPTA data was systemically unreliable, so the UI now actively surfaces discrepancies rather than presenting official data at face value.
- Pivot 2: Safety became a primary metric: Three of five interview participants named physical security as their top transit concern, so stop safety ratings moved from optional features to top-level navigation.
- Pivot 3: Brutalist efficiency over clean corporate design: The design language draws from Philly Handstyle graffiti and the kinetic visual vocabulary of Vogue and Waacking: highly visible, highly intentional, built for motion.
- The Two-Tap Mandate: Any critical action must complete in a maximum of two taps. Users are moving, cold, stressed, or on a weak signal, so the interface has to earn every second.
- Signal Independence: The app architecture assumes a poor connection by default. Critical UI components load without heavy assets, and data caches intelligently.
Erik Smith, Design Engineer & UX Designer