Every railroad has disruption event once in a while. A storm, a flooding, maintenance works, snow and ice, and even landslides. In this situation everybody gets frustrated, and every rail service must provide ample information to passengers. How longwill it take? Is there any alternative route?
Design a chatbot interface for all platforms, design an avatar.
My role: Design lead, Graphic Design, Product Design.
The fastest way to deal with the situation is with the cold head, therefore the major part of the work wasn't the interface itself. It was to design bot responses to feel empathetic to the stressfull situation the person is in. Part of that is emulating human whilst making sure bot doesn't get too familiar, to avoid uncanny valley.
Apart from that, the app has a mix of prebrewed common replies along with ability to simply type in the question yourself anytime. It is designed to provide you with the information on the disruption, alternative routes, validity of the ticket or a handover to the operator.
The conversational UX is all about taking information about the user's location, train number or route. Bit by bit and maintaining contact.
An avatar for such broad audience should have very distinct human features to express emotions, yet be very specifically not human. Cheerful, expressive and relatable. Optionally inheriting some of the Deutsche Bahn branding.
The final version, with red stripes, pantograph and widely known DB ICE train features.
This guy captivated everyone on every product meeting and every presentation i've showed it in.
