World Cup Transit Experience for MARTA

Summary

In this four-month UX research project, I led a team to address the problem of MARTA's fragmented user experience, which poses a significant challenge for the large crowds expected during the 2026 World Cup in Atlanta. My team and I used a multi-method approach, including surveys, interviews, and observations, to understand user needs. I then designed and evaluated a high-fidelity prototype for a unified MARTA app, combining features for trip planning, ticketing, and safety. Providing MARTA with key research and design recommendations, this project laid the groundwork for a user-friendly digital tool to enhance accessibility and promote transit use for the World Cup.

Problem Statement

How might we develop a user-friendly digital tool that enhances accessibility and promotes MARTA use during the 2026 World Cup?

Role

UX Researcher, Team Lead

Team

2 Designers, 2 Researchers

Timeline

August 2025 - December 2025

Tools

Figma, Qualtrics, MaxQDA

Methods

Interview, Focus Group, Survey, Observation, Heuristics, Usability Testing

Design

Sketches, Wireframes, Prototyping

Evaluation

Heuristic Evaluation, Usability Tests

the marta team

My Team

Spencer Luke (Me) Lead Research Dani Generous Research and Writing Echo Cho Lead Design Shachika Thanigaivelu Design and Writing

Contribution

I led the research effort by developing research plans, defining objectives, and creating interview guides. I also served as the primary liaison with MARTA partners and organized research by coordinating interviews, focus groups, and meetings.

Defining the Problem

Atlanta anticipates 300,000+ visitors for the 2026 World Cup, with 75% from out of state. Qatar's tourism surge after the 2022 World Cup represents the significant impact of a successful event. My team aims to design solutions to enhance the World Cup experience, starting by identifying primary users.

Primary Users and Shareholders

At the core of our research and design process are the diverse visitors and locals attending the 2026 World Cup in Atlanta.

train image showing stakeholders

I designed with a wide range of users in mind, including people with disabilities, residents, employees, city services, and local businesses.

Research Questions

Research Question
Rationale
1.
What features of transit systems do users prioritize when using public transportation?
By understanding what users value, we can tailor an experience to best meet their needs.
2.
How do users decide whether to ride public transportation for events or choose alternatives?
Understanding why people may avoid MARTA allows us to improve services and better communicate its benefits.
3.
What barriers do people face when planning and riding public transportation?
Identifying confusion, limitations, and accessibility issues helps us develop solutions to boost MARTA use.
4.
What is the user perception of MARTA?
Understanding user perception helps us target weak points in MARTA.
5.
What problems do users face during times of high traffic on MARTA?
Understanding the key issues allows us to explore ways to alleviate them through interactive design.

Research Methods

Comparative Analysis

Method Details

I compared 5 transit systems chosen based on where World Cup fans would likely be coming from.

  • São Paulo Metrô
  • Madrid Metro
  • New York Subway
  • Mexico City Metro
  • London Tube

I compared them based on 21 criteria including: coverage, accessibility, and ease of navigation, rating criteria on a scale of 0 to 4. This approach offers a holistic view while allowing evaluation from multiple perspectives.

Key Findings

My analysis revealed MARTA's strengths in navigation, accessibility, and visual design. However, it lagged behind in coverage and reliability, so to effectively support World Cup visitors, MARTA should:

  • Simplify and expand ticketing systems.
  • Improve station navigation and system usability.
  • Enhance safety features to reduce user stress and fears.
comparative analysis mexico city metro

Surveys

Method Details

After refining our survey questions, I distributed surveys outside of the Atlanta World Cup venue, Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Soccer fans travelling to the stadium for events perfectly fit our target behavior.

Using QR codes, I collected 104 responses with 18 questions using Qualtrics. I then visualizaed the data in graphs, tables, and charts.

comparative analysis comparative analysis

Key Findings

Most important transit app features

  • Real-time updates (26%)
  • Fare payment (22%)
  • Event suggestions (13%)
  • Crowd info (13%)

Transit alternatives chosen because

  • Crime/harassment (27%)
  • Reliability (24%)
  • Train issues (17%)
  • Real-time info gaps (15%)

MARTA riders most concerned with

  • Inconvenience (27%)
  • Accessibility (15%)
  • Transit Cost (10%)
  • Service Reliability (9%)

Semi-Structured Interviews

Method Details

From surveys and MARTA community groups, our team recruited several interview participants. I then conducted 10 interviews lasting between 25 to 50 minutes each. Interviewees consisted of consistent MARTA users, riders with disabilities, and travelling sport fans.

I used interviews to gather thick, in-depth qualitative data to better understand user experiences and pain-points from various perspectives.

interview 2 interview 1

Key Findings

I analyzed our interview findings by coding the transcript data using MAXQDA. I then organized key points into an affinity map to organized overall findings.

  • Simplify and expand ticketing systems.
  • Improve station navigation and system usability.
  • Enhance safety features to reduce user stress and fears.
interview 2 interview 1

Ethnographic Observations

Method Details

Our team conducted 2 types of ethnographic observations each lasting around 1 hour. We wanted to gain a deep understanding of the behaviors and interactions of users in a natural environment.

phase 1 observation

Phase 1

In phase 1, our team took observational notes travelling to the Mercedes-Benz stadium during a soccer match, taking notes on features and behaviors.

phase 1 observation

Phase 2

In phase 2, each team member followed specific people on their transit journey, such as groups and foreign riders.

phase 2 observation

Key Findings

Notes for both phases were recorded in observational charts in Figma to best analyze the results. From the analysis I found:

Group Travellers

  • Struggled to scan QR tickets
  • Relied on group members to make decisions
  • More delays at turnstile gates

Transit alternatives chosen because

  • Hesitated or showed confusion about directions
  • Frequently used phone for directions
  • Moved quickly through gates

Video Observations

Method Details

Our team got permission from MARTA to observe CCTV footage at their headquarters. I hoped to observe target users in the context of the behavior of interest.

I prepared observation sheets and recorded user interactions, time of completion, ease of action, and demographic traits. I also drew representations of user journeys on maps to record pain-point locations.

interview 2

Key Findings

  • Users tend to check their phones and signage to navigate
  • Users often struggled and spent extra time in the ticketing area
  • Most users seeking help from MARTA personnel seem to be using the mobile Breeze QR ticket
  • Group visitors often struggled with the turnstiles
observation sheets observation map

Personas and Journey Maps

From our user needs research, I visualized our potential users and their needs, expectations, and goals.

Michael (Local)

Persona 1 Journey Map 1

Ana (Visitor)

Persona 2 Journey Map 2

Design Implications

From our user research and visualizations, I determined several design implications intended to support and incentivize MARTA use:

  1. Include relevant, exciting, and interactive elements to encourage users to use MARTA during the World Cup
  2. Provide users with real-time updates and service reports
  3. Allow users to easily plan their trips from multiple locations and include not just MARTA routes
  4. Allow users to contact or communicate with MARTA staff for assistance
  5. Streamline the purchasing and use of MARTA's ticketing system for physical and digital tickets
  6. Include features to enable social connection and share trip details
  7. Encompass many features in a single, comprehensive system
  8. Clearly and intuitively guide users through stations and to exits and entrances

Ideation

Based on our design implications, our team came up with 10 ideas each and wrote them down.

Ideation ideas

We then participated in crazy eights, sketching 8 ideas each. We grouped these ideas together by similarity.

idea sketches organized ideas

Sketches

After our brainstorming session, I created various sketches in Figma and evaluated them.

Sketches

Live-Tracking

Trip Planning

Navigation

Safety and Report

Group Features

Evaluation

After creating sketches in Figma, I held 2 moderated focus group sessions. During feedback sessions I presented groups with our lo-fidelity sketches and discussed functionality, intuitiveness, and accessibility.

Focus Group 1

The first focus group, held on Google Meet, included 4 members from the Rider Advisory Council (RAC) and MARTA Accessibility Committee (MAC) to gather feedback from MARTA riders and potential users.

Sketch focus group online

Focus Group 2

The second focus group was held a MARTA's HQ in Atlanta with 6 experts in customer experience, design, and accessibility. They provided valuable insider perspectives, deepening our understanding of user needs.

Sketch focus group in-person

Analysis and Findings

I analyzed our sketch feedback by organizing our notes on FigJam. Then I organized notes by user, context, and feature discussed. From the sketch evaluation analysis I found that users:

idea sketches organized ideas

Overall, the sketch feedback indicated we needed to refocus our design and simplify several features.

Finding
Solution
1.
Enjoyed group planning features, but found them difficult to understand
Make the design more intuitive to lower tech savviness requirements
2.
Report feature is simple, but it may be hard to inform staff our user location
Allow users to provide more information about their location
3.
Uncertain about chatbot features
Find right use cases for users
4.
Want to see accessibility information for stations, elevators, and bathrooms
Provide information about accessibility for stations
5.
Desire live information and directions
Prioritize life info and navigation
6.
Forums better elsewhere (Reddit)
Remove discussion forums
7.
Concerns of a FIFA traveler are different from that of everyday rider
Further account for World Cup target user group
8.
High cognitive load of trip planning
Prioritize and simplify trip planning

Wireframes

Based on feedback from our sketches, I developed mid-fidelity wireframes to conduct user evaluations. These insights guided the creation of a high-fidelity prototype.

Method Details

To fully evaluate our wireframes, I conducted think-aloud usability tests with 4 non-student participants, selected for their diverse backgrounds, including varying experience with MARTA and international transit systems.

Participants interacted with fully functional phone prototypes designed to emulate the final product. Participants were presented with realistic scenarios reflecting challenges faced by our personas and completed 10 progressively complex tasks.

Tasks and Questions

Users were asked to complete tasks such as:

  • Save and get directions to a World Cup watch party
  • Report an incident that happened on the train
  • Share a meeting spot for the Smiths group to meet up

After each task users would be asked several questions including:

  • Evaluate the difficulty of various features
  • Identify elements that met or failed to meet expectations
  • Express areas where they want to see change
wireframe interview
wireframe demo gif

Analysis and Findings

I analyzed our wireframe feedback by organizing our notes in FigJam by task and color-coded them. I then incorporated color-coded arrows into our wireframes to map user actions during tasks. This visual representation enabled our team to pinpoint UI challenges and confusion more effectively.

Findings

  1. Revisit our language and iconography to make features more intuitive
  2. Promote other ticketing options outside of MARTA (e.g. hotel deals)
  3. Use more universal elements, most users will be new to Atlanta and MARTA
  4. Reanalyze the user flow to reduce the cognitive load users face
  5. Clarify the distinction between emergency and casual reports
  6. Find the right use for the chat bot and allow it to provide more information
  7. Improve UI accessibility to promote foreign languages and accessibility tools
  8. Make service and emergency alerts more pronounced and relevant to users
wireframe analysis wireframe analysis 2

Prototype

Check out the prototype below by using the arrows.

Evaluations

The final step of our four-month MARTA research and design project involved evaluating our high-fidelity prototypes.

Overview

Participants Method
Heuristic Evaluation 5 user experience and customer experience experts Experts completed heuristic evaluations, rating features based on heuristics
Usability Test 5 potential users that are MARTA users or are World Cup fans Users carried out a set of 8 tasks while being asked to think out loud

Heuristic Evaluation

To evaluate our prototype, I had MARTA UX experts evaluate parts of our design based on a mix of Nielsen and Shneiderman's heuristics. Participants rated each page on a scale of 0-4 and gave explanations.

Heuristic Eval Sheet

Participants

Participants included 4 MARTA UX and customer experience experts and 1 Georgia Tech HCI UX expert.

prototype evaluation 1 prototype evaluation 2

Analysis

To analyze our findings, I organized expert notes by task and visualized problem areas by layering the notes directly onto the prototype.

heuristic analysis 1

I also visualized heuristic severity ratings in Excel to calculate evaluation statistics.

heuristic analysis 2

Findings

Group Ticketing

  • The ticketing group toggle's purpose is unclear and confusing
  • Feedback for making group members dependents is not clear
  • Ticket bundles current placement is difficult to find

Alerts & Notifications

  • Users expected to find notifications under the bell icon
  • Lack of alert personalization or filtering is frustrating
  • Navigation announcement unclear and confusing purpose

Navigation & Layout

  • Image banner is too large, hard to read, and looks like an ad
  • Scrolling functionality in trip planning is not obvious
  • The MARTA chat bot button covers important text, frustrating

Clarity & Usability

  • Users confused by unclear terms like “best route”
  • Key features (e.g., walking options) are hidden in dropdowns
  • Event table is confusing, users don't recognize clickable items

Usability Test

In our final test, users interacted with our prototype to complete tasks and provide feedback. Follow-up questions were then used to evaluate usability and gather additional insights.

Usability testing

Participants

Participants were collected from MARTA and program connections. Participants ranged from 21 to 51 years old and all claimed to be "interested" or "likely" to attend the World Cup.

Usability test participants

Analysis

During interviews, we had dedicated note takers who recorded all reactions and interactions. I built affinity maps based on the categories to best evaluate feedback.

Usability test analysis 1

Additionally, I collected metrics through video recordings such as # of clicks, # of errors, and time of completion between users.

Usability test analysis 2

Findings

Visual Design

  • Unclear iconography and button design
  • Misinterpretation of design elements
  • Misaligned visual hierarchy and UX writing

Accessibility & Usability

  • Unclear app navigation leading difficulty in locating app functions
  • Lack of intuitive information structure and feature location
  • Concern for unintended interactions

Information Architecture

  • Misplaced features
  • Navigation challenges
  • Content organization for clarity and consistency

User Perception

  • Unclear user understanding and clarity
  • Customization and preferences needs
  • Unclear purpose of dependency for group members

Impact and Reflection

Next Steps

Implement

  • More intuitive diction
  • Refined iconography
  • Reorganization of information hierarchy

Introduce

  • Onboarding tutorials
  • Better visual hierarchy
  • Customization tools

Eliminate

  • Ad-like imagery
  • MARTA jargon
  • Overcomplicated functions

Results

In December 2024, we presented our research and design process to our professors and 3 representatives from MARTA.

As MARTA moves towards the unified app design and prepares for the World Cup, I hope they will utilize our research and designs to further guide development.

Lessons Learned

  • Fieldwork and research never goes as planned, you need to be able to adapt as the situation changes
  • Send out emails for meetings ASAP because people can take forever to respond and schedule
  • Narrow down the problem area early to avoid wasting time answering useless research questions
  • When ideating and designing avoid losing sight of primary objective
  • Spend time getting everyone to see the big picture and end goal

Contribution

Research

  • I created a detailed plan for each step of the research project
  • I built interview guides and scripts as well as designed survey questions
  • I recruited participants and distributed surveys

Design

  • I helped make design decisions backed by our research
  • I helped design wireframes and prototypes in Figma

Evaluation

  • I wrote evaluation guides for heuristic and usability tests
  • I recruited experts and users to evaluate our designs
  • I created charts for participants to fill out during evaluations