Netherlands' most popular public transportation app 9292.

Mobility is changing at lightning speed. To increase the connection with the traveler and to be ready for the future, 9292 asked us to design the new app.

Challenge

In the Netherlands, more than one million people travel by public transport every day. Like most of the world, many of us are nestled within an ever-expanding population and travel options growing at an exponential rate to accommodate our needs. Travellers have high expectations in our super-tech world and they all need to get somewhere. Furthermore, accessibility is something that should rightfully take up more space within our technology and so our designs needed to revolve around the question: yes but, can everyone use this?

To increase the connection with the traveller and to be ready for the future, 9292 asked us to design their new app!

Solution

This travel app breaks away from the pack by deliberately not just showing you everything and anything. In a world that’s bursting at the seams with information, sometimes the last thing you need is to see every option available. 9292 knows that each traveller has different needs and the more you use it, the better it gets.

Optimising Android’s “TalkBack” and Apple’s “VoiceOver” features, the app deliberately uses more words than icons on the screen to include the more visually impaired traveller. The text interface sitting behind the app is carefully structured so that these aural playback features can read out exactly the details you need to hear. That’s why, for example, it says “station” in the text rather than have it indicated with a cute icon; a simple fix, but one that is regularly overlooked in other apps.

Continuing in this theme, we ensured the app considered other variants of traveller. if you’re a run-of-the-mill commuter who takes the same route every day, 9292 shows your favourite train at the least populated station (because it remembers that you’ll walk a bit further for more peace and quiet). If travelling causes you anxiety, this app knows you want the route that ensures comfort rather than speed, avoiding peak periods. Over time it customises your home screen because you don’t always need the closest option, but you do always need the most reliable. Extensive user testing and consideration for the everyman and everything in between, means that intuition sits at the heart of this travel app.

9292 knows that we all have our ways of navigating public transport and that’s why it’s the most used travel app in the Netherlands (sorry Google).

Better together

This was an awesome collaboration with the 9292 team, our techy expert friends at Q42, and our very own design geniuses at Morrow.