Project role
Service Design Lead,
via Fjord (Accenture)
Target users
Millions of transit riders in Ontario
Methods
Service Design
User Research
Subject matter
Public transportation systems
Timeframe
2019
Background
PRESTO connects many transit agencies across the GTHA and Ottawa. Riders move between channels—kiosks, app, gates, partner sites—and fare products, concessions, and rules aren’t always obvious. Onboarding can be clunky, group travel is hard to complete, and support often carries the burden of explaining policy. The program needed a single future-state vision for ticketing and accounts, grounded in real rider behavior, and a prioritized path to delivery that respected operational constraints.
Service & project context
Project scoping, war room & ways of working
Approach
We combined in-field research with service blueprinting and co-creation. I led rider intercepts across stations ({80+} conversations), synthesized findings into journey maps and a Future-State Vision (FSV) that tied concepts to operational realities. With product and agency stakeholders, we broke concepts into features, attached value × achievability scores, and sequenced them into releases. We prototyped key flows (onboarding, top-ups, open payments, group travel), tested them with riders, then produced clear handoffs: feature definitions, flow specs, content patterns, and a prioritized backlog.
Moves that made the difference
FSV map that shows end-to-end journeys and how channels fit together
A simplified account / product model (one mental model across app/web/kiosk)
Prioritization framework (value × achievability) to turn the FSV into a roadmap
Testable flow specs for high-impact scenarios: new rider onboarding, open-loop payments, group/visitor, concessions
Subject matter immersion
Ethnographic user research methods
Research findings showcase deliverable
We turned field insights into a set of lean concepts that spanned the whole rider journey—onboarding, product selection, payments (incl. open-loop), group/visitor scenarios, concessions, and help & receipts. I facilitated co-design with PRESTO stakeholders and agency partners to pressure-test policy and operational realities, then prototyped the highest-value flows in app/web and kiosk form factors. We ran quick intercept tests with riders to compare alternatives, tuned the language and defaults, and mapped each concept to value × achievability so product and engineering had a clear path to ship.
Thematic synthesis from user research
Development of concept posters
Service blueprint artifact - digital ticketing concept definition
Backlog prioritization methods
Concept testing for idea validation
PRESTO ticketing concept definition - Experience architecture deliverable
Impact
The work aligned PRESTO and participating agencies on a clear north star and unblocked delivery with test-ready flows. It reduced ambiguity for product/engineering, gave customer support clearer language, and improved rider comprehension in validation sessions. The roadmap provided a staged path—from near-term fixes to larger platform shifts—so teams could ship value while modernizing the system.
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