What if MARTA told you when the train was coming—before you even had to ask?
Context: MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) serves thousands of daily commuters in Atlanta. While the system is essential to city life, its mobile app has long been criticized for its disorganization, unintuitive structure, and cumbersome navigation. Riders must sift through dense tables and multiple menus just to discover train or bus arrival times—an unreliable experience that contributes to reduced rider confidence and potentially lower ridership.
Problem Statement: The existing MARTA app requires too many steps to surface real-time arrival data, making it difficult for commuters to plan their trips effectively. The design is visually dense and lacks intuitive structure, making quick interactions—critical for transit users—frustrating and unreliable.
"I want to know when the train will arrive at the station when commuting to work so that I can be on time without missing the train."
This jobs-to-be-done insight became the foundation for the redesign.
Objectives:
Simplify the user journey to discover train and bus arrival times
Reorganize the app’s information architecture and menu structure
Use location services to reduce search steps and personalize data
Improve information legibility and visual hierarchy
Team and Role: This was a solo concept project completed as part of a design challenge. I chose this topic based on my personal experience as an Atlanta commuter and MARTA rider. It was a user-centered redesign driven by real-world frustrations and needs.
Process:
User Insight: Used the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework to define a core design directive
Audit: Mapped out the existing app flow and identified excessive steps—specifically, four screens were required to find train arrivals at a given station
Geolocation Strategy: Proposed a new home screen that opens directly to a map with real-time arrival info for the two stations nearest to the user
IA Overhaul: Reorganized the site map and replaced the bottom-tab menu with a streamlined hamburger menu for better scalability
UI Redesign: Applied a new typographic hierarchy to simplify visual scanning of train schedules, tables, and other dense data
Solution Highlights:
Location-aware landing screen showing real-time arrivals without tapping through multiple screens
Simplified navigation using a single slide-out menu instead of complex tab structures
Visual refresh using design patterns for transit apps, clean table formatting, and readable type scales
Outcomes: The project successfully achieved its goals of simplifying the experience and improving readability. By leveraging location data and rethinking the UI hierarchy, the design now meets the critical needs of busy commuters.
Even better, the project served its intended real-world purpose—I received a job offer from the company I was interviewing with, thanks to this challenge.