Overview
While comparing IndyGo's ridership data from this year to 2019, it became clear that the pandemic drastically impacted the way people navigate their daily lives. Fear and uncertainty over COVID-19 caused life to slow down, and we knew we needed something to change.
This is why we created the Indy Rider Health App. Designed to bring peace of mind, this app allows public transportation users to document their rides and their health. By simply scanning QR codes, users are able to know that they are protecting themselves and those around them with ease.
Team Members
Kefil Tonouewa - Project Manager, Pro Squad (Senior Computer Engineering student at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) As a project manager, Kefil was responsible for assigning tasks and making sure weekly meeting were held in the group. As a pro Squad member, Kefil work heavily on the front end as well as the backend of the final product.
Connor Bradt- Pro Squad(UX Designer, Senior Computer Science @Purdue University-Fort Wayne) Connor provided useful insight with the overall layout of several features and assisted the efforts to discover solutions that progress development while still have a user-friendly product.
Tony Feng (Software Developer, Junior Cybersecurity and Network Engineering @ Purdue) - Tony streamlined the development process by creating an InVision prototype and normalizing software. He established the development team's collaborative environment as well as created the initial foundation that our development team has built upon.
Matthew Homes (Marketer, Marketing and MIS double major at Butler University) Matthew assisted in many aspects of the Go Squad's go-to-market strategy including environmental analysis, value proposition design, and business model canvas. He was also responsible for product branding and logo design.
Sydney Williams (Business Analyst, Junior Mechanical Engineer at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology) Sydney was responsible for helping the Go Squad create a go-to-market strategy for the product, as well as helping present the final solution.
How did you decide on customer segment, problem, and solution?
After some discussion within our team, it became clear that the group who would be using our app the most is public transportation users. IndyGo and all other public transportation services rely on people needing and wanting to go places to generate business. Reigniting the public's confidence in travel is key to bringing back business.
With businesses beginning to open up again, people are starting to have more motivation to go out, but the fear is still there. With so much uncertainty surrounding crowds and public places, we sought out to design something that would help ease people's minds. We looked at many different options and eventually narrowed our efforts down to an easy-to-use app that would allow people to track their whereabouts and notify others if they tested positive for COVID-19.
How did your team build and iterate on the solution?
One of our main concerns going into the design process was respecting users' privacy. We knew that many people are opposed to having their location tracked or having their information shared, so we wanted to come up with a solution that would allow people to record their whereabouts without surrendering any personal information. We did this by having users enter just an email. We later on gave the users the flexibility to build up their profile by adding more personal information to it, if they choose to do so.
Key Metrics
Our Pro Squad conducted periodic user tests with our team coaches to ensure our app is user-friendly.
Tech Architecture
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/Tonouewa-kefil/TechPointSosChallenge
Key Tools, Libraries, and Frameworks
Programming Language: Python
Module: kivy
Main Libraries: Open CV, Datetime, mySQL, numpy
If you had another 5 weeks to work on this, what would you do next?
One of the things that we discussed as a way to re-purpose our app post-pandemic was implementing a lost and found function. If users lost an item, they would be able to notify the transportation provider via the app. Since they would be recording their rides, this would help narrow down the search for the lost item. Having an extra five weeks would allow us to expand on this idea and further develop it.
Another thing we considered was integrating our app with public transportation providers' apps. Linking the tracking abilities of our app to someone's bus card, for example, would allow one less step for customers when they are using public transportation. They would only need to swipe their bus card and their trip would be recorded in our app, eliminating the need for scanning QR codes when they take a ride.
One final idea we had would be to expand this app to other cities. Granted, this would require a renaming, but our app would be very easily adapted to other cities and transportation systems.
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