BVG Fahrinfo - Redesign - Public Transport
Redesigning Berlin’s Transit Experience
A comprehensive redesign of the BVG Fahrinfo app aimed at streamlining Berlin’s public transport experience. The project focused on simplifying navigation, modernizing the interface, and introducing personalized, user-centric features.
Timeline
End-to-end project delivery from discovery to final user-tested prototype
Background
BVG Fahrinfo, the official transport app for Berlin, had grown outdated and complex, leading to frequent user frustration, low engagement, and competition from alternative apps.
This project responded to clear user demands for simplicity, reliability, and personalization transforming the app into a modern, intuitive, and engaging mobility solution for people across Berlin.
This category details the step-by-step approach taken during the project, including research, planning, design, development, testing, and optimization phases.
User Research Methods
Conducted surveys and in-depth interviews with Berlin commuters, tourists, and students to understand pain points and usage habits.
Developed detailed user personas to guide design decisions,
Key Usage Insights
Most users engaged with the app weekly or less frequently; daily use was rare. (Since there were at least 4 apps to juggle.)
Route planning and ticket purchasing were secondary to real-time updates on delays and service disruptions, which were most valued..
Over half of surveyed users were dissatisfied with the app’s outdated design and interface.
User Pain Points
Navigation was cluttered and complicated, making it difficult to find the right place on the map.
Ticket purchase process was confusing and slow, especially for buying multiple tickets.
The app lacked personalized route recommendations and English language support in route planning.
Multiple overlapping BVG apps fragmented the user experience and led to frequent app-switching
In brief users prioritize reliability, simplicity, and personalization for public transit apps. There is a strong market opportunity to deliver a unified, user-centric mobility solution to improve travel for people across Berlin
Competitor Analysis
The analysis was done under 4 main categories of their features.
Target Audience
UI/UX Design
Navigation & Information Architecture
Core features & functionality
Key Insights - Multimodal Transportation / Offline mode / Real time updates / User Friendly
Our target audience included frequent commuters, Tourists & foreign students, users with accessibility needs and Occasional public transport users.
The wireframes were designed and a prototype of that was developed for testing.
The wireframing process for the BVG Fahrinfo app redesign was highly iterative and user-centered. Initial wireframes were created to visualize the app’s information architecture and key user flows, focusing on simplifying navigation and core tasks like route planning and ticket purchasing.
Based on the research & user inputs the designs were refined multiple times to better address user pain points and enhance the overall experience, ensuring that the final wireframes formed a solid foundation for the UI design and prototyping stages.
I learn alot about mobile app design through this project and also how simple UX principles go a long way to increase efficiency.
User-centered Improvements
The redesign addressed core pain points by simplifying navigation, decluttering the interface, and improving the ticket purchase flow, making the app significantly easier and more intuitive to use
Streamlined Experience
Clear information architecture and a simplified bottom navigation allowed quick access to essential features, decreasing cognitive load and speeding up user journeys
Competitive Edge
Incorporating unique features and modern design elevated the BVG Fahrinfo app’s market position against competitors, supporting BVG’s goal of being the primary mobility app for Berlin.
The key lesson I learnt here was that how continuous iteration and user feedback were essential; no design felt "complete" until real users validated it with their insights, driving ongoing enhancements