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First Bus is one of the UK’s largest bus operators, with approximately 4,500 buses transporting more than 1 million passengers a day. First Bus planned to improve the experience customers have when using the mobile app.
The mobile app is a major platform for First Bus, with around 1.5 million monthly users. Customers use the app to plan trips, check live bus times, and buy tickets. A strategic objective for First Bus is a modal shift, encouraging people from using cars to travelling on the bus. Providing a strong digital experience is key to this, with the app experience needing to be intuitive and user-friendly.
Given the app’s importance to First Bus customers, our conversion rate optimisation (CRO) team needed to understand users’ real-life experiences using it. To do this, our CRO experts devised a series of user tests to learn how customers used the mobile app and uncover areas for improvement.
Our CRO specialists carefully prepared the user testing to ensure First Bus gained the most impactful insights about the mobile app. The first stage was to work closely with First Bus to discover what they wanted to gain from the user testing.
First Bus is keen to encourage customers to download and use the app, utilising all its available features. Because of this, First Bus continually improves the app to refine the overall user experience. However, First Bus wants to ensure any changes or amendments create a better user experience for customers.
An advantage of our experts conducting user testing is that it provides unbiased feedback for the First Bus team and can highlight previously unknown perspectives. The next step was to recruit volunteers who were open to take part in the testing.
First Bus recruited volunteers through its app, and the take-up was overwhelming. The enthusiasm was great for First Bus, representing its user base’s customer loyalty and affinity with its brand. 12 volunteers were selected to participate in the user testing and answer questions based on the First Bus app.
The volunteers lived across the UK, with ages ranging from early 20s to retirement age, and a mixture of frequent and infrequent users amongst them.
The participants had to complete a series of tasks on the First Bus app, with their opinions, feelings, and emotions recorded via video call as they carried out the tests. The tests themselves lasted between 30 to 60 minutes, and research objectives, as part of the user testing, were:
The research objectives guided the script and focus of the interviews, leading to more targeted insights closely related to the project’s requirements.
The 12 tests produced over 50 insights about different aspects of the First Bus app. The tests revealed several user journey problems and various UX issues that were easy to fix, improving the app’s usability.
Buses disappearing significantly affected all the participant’s trust in the app. Another issue highlighted during the user testing was that not communicating about diversions or suspended stops affected the user’s experience and confidence in the app.
Search functionality was a recurring hurdle for many people who participated in user testing. Although the team at First Bus thought the search bar was easy to find, users needed help finding it on the app. Many users also didn’t notice the app had a search bar, which was enlightening for the First Bus team to learn.
The First Bus app has a section called ‘Journey Planner,’ which allows users to plan their bus journey from start to finish and log departure and arrival times of connecting bus services.
The users found it confusing because it focused on ‘stops’ rather than location or bus service. Plus, users felt it was difficult to find buses on the app if they moved between stands, as there wasn’t an alert to notify them of the change.
Updating email addresses was a problem many participants shared during the user testing. All but one user found changing the email address linked to their account straightforward.
One participant found the process confusing but completed the task after receiving instructions. Another participant completed the task but told the CRO team they had to call First Bus customer services a few weeks prior for help changing their email address. This reinforced the need for the app to have more straightforward and intuitive account management features.
The team at First Bus was extremely pleased with the insights from the user testing. Most users were positive about their app experience, but all 12 participants had to find workarounds or seek external validation to ensure a smooth bus journey.
Because the testing was non-biased, it reasserted many of the team’s thoughts on what their customers need from the app. It also opened the team’s eyes to issues on the app and challenged assumptions about what customers need.
These new perspectives were significant as they delivered a customer-first approach for First Bus. The team learned from their users why they needed to make specific changes to the app and ensured they were effective, rather than altering the app without prior research and the changes being ineffective.
The next step for the client is to make changes following the user testing. These alterations include:
Throughout the whole user testing experience, one thread was consistent for First Bus: prioritising the user’s experience of the app above everything else. The First Bus team really wanted to understand their users’ needs to deliver the best possible experience. By investing in deep user testing and audience research, First Bus can listen to, learn from, and grow from its customers’ individual needs.
This reaffirms First Bus’s strong reputation and allows it to create an intuitive mobile app that continues to meet the requirements of its loyal customers. Along with these objectives, the First Bus team continues to gain user research about the new app features, which appeared following the app’s most recent update.
“For First Bus, understanding their customers is vital and this shows in their focus on user testing and other user research methods. The outcome of this project is key to really serving customers with a fitting, easy to use, and intuitive experience, making bus travel as accessible as possible.
The user testing doesn’t only help with improving the user experience, but also helps product teams focus on solving real user problems and marketing teams focus their messaging on the things that matter most to customers.
User testing is probably one of my favourite user research methods. It allows us to understand how the user experiences a client’s online experience because we can talk directly to the customers. Talking to the customers lets us get deeper insights into what does and doesn’t work, as well as understand the context user’s use the product in.”
Hans Hoogenboom – CRO Business Director
In this webinar, we’re joined by our partners Optimizely, a leading digital experience platform provider, to explore how businesses can supercharge their experimentation efforts to achieve growth.
We highlight how conversion rate optimisation enables aspirational online experiences for users, optimisation best practices, as well as showcase tools to elevate digital innovation initiative.
The result enables brands to stay ahead of the competition in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.
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