Personas

Primary persona:

Karl Karlsson

Age: 22

Occupation: Student

Hobbies: Likes to party, engage in political manifestations and play video games.

Commutes: Daily, different times though

Tech: Uses his iPhone way too much otherwise not so handy with technology.

Karl grew up in Luleå but moved to Stockholm when he were to start upper secondary school because he wanted a niche to economics which wasn’t available in Luleå. After high school he started to study industrial engineering and management at KTH. He is also ambitious and does some courses at Södertörn in positive psychology.

Karl enjoys socializing and being a student at KTH there’s a lot of parties to do so. As he’s not raised in Stockholm he still manages to get lost sometimes, especially when trying to find his way to a party somewhere he’s never been before. Karl is also the type of personality that always procrastinates everything as much as possible, eating, sleeping, studying and going to school. This makes him depend a lot on frequent departures using public transport.

At this moment...

Karl failed some courses last semester and have been declined pay outs from CSN for a while. The tight budget forces Karl to skip tickets and cheat on paying for the subway a few times. He tries to ride his bike as often as he can though. He have a sublet at Södermalm for a year now so distance to school is doable but not every day. His girlfriend is living at Kungsholmen and the bike ride there is a leg killer.

Scenario 1

At 7:40 Karl walks briskly towards Skanstull subway station.  He is not a morning person and usually skips the morning classes but today he has an exam and he is already late. He zigzags across the crowded station and gets on the train just before the doors close. He gets off at Slussen to change to the red line, the sign on the platform tells him there’s a train coming in 3 minutes. Annoyed by all the people, he backs up against the wall and picks up his cellphone to pass the time. After scrolling through Facebook a bit he glances at the time, 7 minutes has passed and the train hasn’t arrived! There’s no information on the delay either on the platform or the app, Karl hasn’t got the time for this. He checks the app for an alternative route and it tells him to take bus 2 towards Norrtull. He pushes through the crowd and up the escalators and rushes out on Götgatan. Where to now? Where are all the busses? He checks the app but the map is poor on details and he doesn’t know where he is himself. He grudgingly starts asking people on the street and after being rejected a few times by people in a hurry, a little old lady points him in the right direction. When he finally gets to the bus stop he has already missed his intended buss and he is going to be very, very late.

Scenario 2

Karl’s girlfriend has a younger sister whose birthday happened to be today. To celebrate she’s having a laserdome birthday party, which he and his girlfriend are invited to. The evening single variable calculus lecture ran over the allotted time, so not only is Karl tired this Friday evening after a long day in school, but he is also late to the party.

Being a bit stressed, he rushes to the subway and manages to get on the red line heading south that was just leaving. He knows the laserdome arena was somewhere on the green line, at a location he’s never been before. The thought of 20 elementary school students complaining to his girlfriend about not starting the laserdome games due to Karl being late stress him out even more.

Nearing T-centralen, he double-checks which of T-centralen and Slussen the southbound green line leaves from - something he never remember. He will only have a 1 minute margin to the next train, so it’s important he picks the right station to switch lines.

When he arrives at Globen, he’s unsure what exit he should choose. They’re far apart, and he don’t want to delay the party more than necessary. He doesn’t recognize the street names on the signage, so he picks an exit at random. It turns out he picked the wrong exit, delaying him another 5 minutes trying to find his way around Skanstull. When he arrives, Karl’s girlfriend is very annoyed that Karl kept her little sister waiting.

Gun-Britt Olsson

Age: 55

Occupation: Member of parliament

Hobbies: Playing boule, painting.

Commutes: Travels to work every day on regular times.

Tech: Apart from doing work related stuff on her computer she doesn't use it too much. Her son bought her a smartphone and she is slowly getting used to it, she does enjoy being able to read email on her way to work with it.

When she was younger, Gun-Britt used to live in Lund, however, her husband had to move to Enköping because of his work. She had always been politically engaged and decided to finally take the chance and work in the parliament. The main reason she is in Stockholm is because of her work, as such she's not familiar with places outside her usual way to work. While traveling she likes to use the time efficiently by working on her laptop on the longer train journey and then reading email on her phone while on the subway. On the weekends she enjoys playing boule with the senior team she joined, usually it's in the local area, but sometimes they play against a team in Stockholm and have to travel there. The first times she got lost for a while, before calling a friend and eventually finding the right place, but nowadays she knows where to go.

Today:

Since her son showed her the SL-app she feels more confident traveling new routes. When finding the time to do so, Gun-Britt and her husband enjoys exploring museums, theaters and other cultural events. However, as good as the SL-app is it is very vague on where to go once you're off the station, so getting lost when walking out of the station is a common occurrence. Now that winter has passed she’s hoping that the trains won’t be late as often, since she doesn’t like being late to work.

Scenario 1

Gun-Britt is an early riser, so getting on her bike to catch the train at 7:08 in the morning does not phase her one bit — especially now that spring has arrived. Using her priority pass she's able to find a seat with a table, and starts working on her laptop before the train has started rolling off the station.

Just under 45 minutes later she instinctively knows that the train is about to arrive at Stockholm Central so she packs away her stuff, puts on her jacket and heads for the door. Bustling onto the platform and into the rush hour crowd, she barely notices the throng of people since their presence is nothing out of the ordinary. As she approaches the metro junction she habitually checks the SL-app — no delays, next train in 2 minutes, next after that in 3 — her feet doesn't miss a step, trudging on toward the red/green platform. She's heading to Gamla Stan.

To get to Riksdagen she could take the blue line to Strömkajen and walk from there, or walk directly from the Central station, but Gun-Britt prefers walking through the beautiful Gamla Stan. The Gamla Stan route is also faster with both of the busy red and green lines passing through.

She positions herself on the platform ready to enter at the back of the train, which is where her exit is. The overhead display says that next metro train arrives in 1 minute. She begins checking her emails on her phone — this takes much more of her attention than the arrival of the train, or than herself stepping on the train and finding a handrail. Her only momentary distraction is another passenger bumping into her phone-hand, but before she knows it she has reached her station and is walking out of it.

Scenario 2

One day, things are different than usual. Gunbritt exits the pendeltåg at T-Centralen and knows if she walks at a normal pace she will be able to take a green-line train and arrive at work right on time. Gun-britt isn’t a morning person, so she doesn’t schedule more time than necessary for the morning commute. Today is an important day, as they will be voting on an important matter as the parliament.

Gun-britt is stopped on her usual way through the central station by some scaffoldings and a sign saying “Ombyggnation: genomgång tillfälligt avstängd. Var vänlig följ markeringarna. For information in English please visit sl.se”. This is terrible news for Gun-britt! She picks up the pace to follow the route the orange arrows are showing her, but anticipates that it will be much longer than her everyday walk. She risks being late for work. “I wish I had known about this earlier, I would have taken an earlier train to have time to figure this out. They really should inform people”, she thinks in her head. Her frustration increases when she once lose track of the orange arrows, and has to ask someone for help to get back on track. She does finally find her way and arrive to work only five minutes late. Nobody notices, but she was very stressed during the trip.

Pain points:

Why do people use the metro? What pain does it alleviate?

• avoid above-ground traffic
• is inexpensive
• possible to read/work on the metro
• runs at most travelled hours of the day
• runs frequently enough

What are the pain points during normal operation of the metro?

• able to avoid delays
• not having to worry about there being delays
• know about resegarantier when there are delays
• know wait time/stress for transfers
• trust that the route is correct
• know about alternative routes
• know where to stand/enter/exit trains depending on station exit
• know if the trains are short

What are the pain points in the environment of the metro?

• bothered by crowding in stations
• bothered by crowding on the train
• bothered by not having a place to sit
• bothered by dirt/grime
• safety at stations and in trains
• scared about getting stuck in the train
• worried when trains stop and no reason given
• worried about catastrophic events in the metro
• scared of rowdy/drunk people on late nights
• scared of the ideo of such people
• women worrying about people late at night in general
• fear of turnstiles?
• bothered by old/non-modern trains