We recently relocated to the city of dreams, Mumbai. It really astonishes me the way the city treats me. There are so many people coming here for jobs, education, financial capital, and also since it’s called the New York of India. One of the biggest aspects of Navi Mumbai is the ease of access in terms of user experience in daily life. I also read this quote recently where it says,
what’s not to love about Mumbai?
It is really a city of dreams. But another thing as a UX designer that caught my eye was the UX around the city of Navi Mumbai. There have been a lot of well-planned aspects, which would assist the users amazingly. I wanted to show you all the aspects that give an advantage to the users on the experience front.
The 3 Best Practices followed are :
Banks and Clinics
I came from a city in South India. If I needed to do a money deposit at two different banks, it would take half a day because most of the banks are not close to each other. But here in Navi Mumbai, I see all the banks, or at least a few banks, always located adjacent to each other or inside the same complex. I have like three accounts at different banks. When I relocated here, I had to go to the bank and do some small things. It took me like an hour to finish my job. The two most important aspects of design are “discoverability” and "understandability." That is why this is a very good experience.
You can see this screenshot of all the banks near my house. Which is within a 500-meter radius. Amazing, isn’t it? Maybe that is why it is called financial capital.
Not just that, I also found out another interesting aspect of the same logic of having all the small clinics and testing labs in one big, complex building. It is like a jigsaw puzzle of different clinics with different specialties in one building put together, like a multi-specialty hospital. Although this relates to urban planning, this feels really well planned.
These aspects so much relate to the Gestalt principle of proximity. The law of proximity is a principle in Gestalt psychology that describes “how the human eye perceives elements that are close together as more related than elements that are further apart.”
Traffic signal: new installations.
The new traffic lights installed in Navi Mumbai will help you identify what the traffic signal is even from half a mile away. Now, no one can say that the traffic signal was distracted because of a tree in the median, which distracted the driver in the way. Absolutely NO.
UX Principle: Visibility of the system status; heuristic principles
Trains have marks for special compartments
Mumbai is known for its trains, and most people use trains for commuting because of the traffic in the city. One unique aspect of trains here is that there are patterns of identifiers that will help the users find a particular coach, e.g., ladies coach, first class, etc.
The red pattern you observe here signifies a first-class coach. Beyond that, consider how you might discern whether this compartment stops precisely where you’re standing on the platform. Notably, the platform itself incorporates the same pattern, facilitating easy identification of where these coaches come to a halt. It exemplifies commendable user experience design.
We see in the image above that the platform has a pattern mentioning a place for a first-class coach. That helps commuters to wait here if they have taken a first-class ticket.
If you see the interesting pattern here of how people are waiting for the train. You can see the blue stripes on the train denoting women of first class. And we can see a very clear bifurcation of men and women in front of their respective first-class coaches, waiting for the train.
Nowadays, this aspect is being followed in many other states and even in the Metro railway network infrastructure as well.
UX principle: heuristics. Recognition rather than recall.
Parking: odd and even days
This is the best out of the lot. In a city like Mumbai and N. Mumbai, where the population is huge, that also comes along with a lot of vehicles. I have seen people's cars parked out on the main road most of the time because there is a shortage of space inside the apartment complex. This results in confusion on the road, and sometimes the shop owners get affected because of a lack of parking space in front of their shops.
The Mumbai traffic system recently introduced an odd-and-even-day parking arrangement. On odd dates, drivers are required to park on one side of the road, while on even dates, they must park on the opposite side of the odd day arrangement. This system aims to facilitate the smooth flow of traffic on these roads. Additionally, it provides shop owners with alternating days of relief, contributing to a more organized and manageable parking scenario.
In the news, Anand Kishor said, “The new system will regularize traffic. Earlier, some roads remained choked because of parking on both sides.”
We can relate this to the content switchers, which help us organize heavy data under them.
Conclusion:
So, I find value in observing the UX aspects embedded in everyday surroundings. This practice helps fine-tune my brain to appreciate the design of everyday things, contributing to my growth as a well-rounded designer. Can you also start thinking this way? Whatever you see around, try comparing it to UX principles. This helps us design better experiences at our workplace. And also understand what people need in a design.
Feel free to add your experiences in the comments.
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