Redesigning APSRTC’s Booking Flow
Improving the online booking experience for Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) by identifying usability gaps and optimizing user flows.
Year Industry Tools
2025 Education Figma, Photoshop
Redesigning APSRTC’s Booking Flow
Improving the online booking experience for Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) by identifying usability gaps and optimizing user flows.
Year :
2025
Industry :
Transportation & Mobility
Tools :
Figma,Figjam,Adobe Photoshop
Project Overview
APSRTC's booking platform is a key digital touchpoint for passengers across Andhra Pradesh. While the system supports complete ticket reservations, the experience lacked clarity and efficiency at critical stages. This project focused on conducting a UX evaluation and redesign of the booking flow identifying usability gaps, streamlining interactions, and creating a more intuitive and user-friendly journey.
Problem
The existing booking experience introduced friction at critical stages:
-Users had to repeat inputs (boarding & dropping points) -Poor visual hierarchy made key actions hard to identify -Inconsistent interactions created confusion
-The payment stage lacked clarity and trust
This resulted in higher cognitive load and slower task completion, particularly at high-intent stages like seat selection and payment.
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Challenges Faced by the
Existing Website
Instead of isolated usability issues, the problems were mapped across the end-to-end booking journey to identify where users experienced the highest friction and drop-offs.
Key Issues Identified
Stage 1: Search & Discovery
Users faced difficulty identifying the right bus due to limited filtering options and unclear result presentation. The lack of visible applied filters and weak information hierarchy made it harder to compare options efficiently, increasing decision time.
Impact:Early friction led to hesitation and drop-offs.
Stage 2: Seat Selection
The seat selection interface lacked clarity and visual structure, making it difficult for users to quickly understand availability and make confident decisions. The absence of clear legends and inconsistent layout increased cognitive load.
Impact:Reduced confidence during a critical decision step.
Stage 3: Passenger Details & Form Filling
Users were required to repeatedly input boarding and dropping details, creating unnecessary redundancy in the flow. Additionally, the lack of real-time validation led to errors being identified late in the process.
Impact:Increased effort and form abandonment.
Stage 4: Payment & Confirmation
(Critical Drop-off Point)
The payment stage lacked clear feedback, structured information, and reassurance, making users uncertain about the success or failure of their transaction. Poor grouping of payment options and unclear error handling further contributed to confusion.
Impact:Highest drop-off due to low trust and clarity.
Redesigning APSRTC’s Booking Flow
APSRTC’s booking platform is a key digital touchpoint for passengers across Andhra Pradesh. While it supports online ticket reservations, the experience lacked clarity and efficiency at critical stages.
This project focused on evaluating the existing booking journey, identifying usability gaps, and redesigning interactions to create a simpler, more intuitive experience for passengers.
Phase 1 / Research & Discovery
Understanding the Friction in Bus Booking
The existing APSRTC booking experience presented usability challenges at critical stages of the journey. Unclear interactions, inefficient steps, and limited feedback made it harder for passengers to navigate the process with confidence.
Key friction points:
Search and bus discovery
Seat selection
Payment and confirmation
Phase 1 / Research & Discovery
Identifying the Key Usability Gaps
The existing booking journey was evaluated across key stages to identify usability issues, unnecessary steps, and areas where users needed greater clarity and feedback.
Key Issues Identified
Search & Discovery
Limited filtering options, unclear result hierarchy, and a lack of visible applied filters made it difficult for users to compare buses and refine their search efficiently.
Seat Selection
Unclear seat indicators and a lack of visual structure made seat availability difficult to interpret, adding friction to an important decision.
Passenger Details & Form Filling
Repeated entry of boarding and dropping details created unnecessary effort, while limited real-time validation made errors harder to identify early.
Payment & Confirmation
Poorly organised payment options, unclear transaction feedback, and limited error guidance made it harder for users to understand payment status and proceed with confidence.
Key Insight: The booking experience needed clearer information hierarchy, fewer repetitive steps, and more consistent feedback across critical interactions.
Phase 1 / Research & Discovery
Understanding Passenger Needs & Expectations
The booking journey was evaluated from route search to payment to understand user expectations and identify opportunities to improve the experience.
The research considered daily commuters, occasional travellers, elderly passengers, and first-time online bookers. Across these groups, clarity, ease of navigation, and confidence during booking emerged as important considerations.
Mapping the end-to-end journey helped identify friction caused by repetitive inputs, unclear filtering behaviour, and inconsistent visual hierarchy, informing the direction of the redesign.
Phase 1 / Research & Discovery
Uncovering Friction Through User Research
A multi-layered UX audit combined moderated usability testing, user interviews, heuristic evaluation, and task-flow analysis to identify friction across the APSRTC booking journey.
1-User Observation & Task Analysis
Participants attempted to book tickets on the APSRTC website while thinking aloud. The sessions revealed difficulties with filter selection, calendar interactions, repeated boarding and dropping point inputs, and uncertainty during payment.
User interviews helped uncover expectations around clarity, ease of navigation, and confidence when making booking decisions.
Key Insight
The primary challenge was not the availability of booking functionality, but how clearly users could navigate each step and understand the outcome of their actions. This highlighted the need for more intuitive interactions, reduced repetition, and clearer feedback throughout the journey.
The findings were synthesized into actionable insights that guided the redesign and improved the booking flow.
User interviews were conducted with daily commuters, occasional travelers, elderly users, and first-time online bookers to understand their expectations and booking behaviors.
Evaluating the Existing Booking Experience
2-Heuristic Evaulation
The existing APSRTC website was evaluated against usability principles, focusing on consistency, visibility of system status, error prevention, and visual hierarchy.
Key issues identified:
-Unclear filter behaviour: Users had limited visibility into applied filters and how to modify them.
-Non-functional elements: Some interface elements did not clearly communicate their purpose or expected behaviour.
-Redundant steps: Repeated inputs and unnecessary interactions added effort to the booking process.
-Limited payment feedback: Unclear status messages and error handling made it harder to understand payment outcomes.
Phase 2 / Competitive Analysis
Comparing Booking Experience Patterns
3-Competitor Analysis
APSRTC was benchmarked against AbhiBus, RedBus, MakeMyTrip (Bus), and TSRTC across key aspects of the booking journey, including calendar interactions, filter visibility, seat layout clarity, boarding and drop-off selection, payment grouping, and real-time validation.
The comparison highlighted opportunities to improve visual hierarchy, simplify interactions, and provide clearer feedback. These findings informed the redesign of APSRTC’s booking flow, focusing on more intuitive navigation and a more consistent experience across critical booking stages.
Phase 3 / Design & Iteration
Simplifying the Booking Experience
The redesign focused on addressing key friction points identified during the audit by simplifying interactions, improving clarity, and strengthening user trust across critical stages of the booking journey.
Stage 1: Search & Discovery
Solution Approach:
1) Visible filter tags with quick removal
2) Clear hierarchy for faster scanning
3) Structured result cards for easy comparison
Outcome:Enabled quicker decision-making and reduced early-stage friction.
Stage 2: Seat Selection
Solution Approach:
1) Redesigned seat map with clear legends and states
2) Improved spacing and visual grouping
3) Standardized layout for better predictability
Outcome:Improved user confidence and faster seat selection.
Stage 2: Seat Passanger Selection Passan
Solution Approach:
1) Redesigned seat map with clear legends and states
2) Improved spacing and visual grouping
3) Standardized layout for better predictability
Outcome:Improved user confidence and faster seat selection.
Stage 3: Passenger Details & Form Filling
Solution Approach:
1) Merged redundant steps into a single flow
2) Added real-time validation for inputs
3) Simplified form structure
Outcome:Reduced user effort and minimized form errors.
Stage 4: Payment & Confirmation
Solution Approach:
1) Grouped payment options for easier comparison
2) Added clear feedback and confirmation states
3) Improved error handling and retry flows
Outcome:Increased trust and reduced drop-offs at the final step.
These improvements collectively streamlined the booking flow, making it more intuitive, efficient, and trustworthy.
Defining the Redesign Priorities
Eliminate redundant steps and simplify the booking flow
Reduce friction across the booking journey
Improve clarity in decision-making steps
Minimize redundant user inputs
Build trust during payment and confirmation
Create a faster, more predictable booking experience
Phase 3 / Design & Iteration
Restructuring the Booking Flow
The booking flow was restructured to reduce friction, eliminate redundancy, and improve clarity across key steps.
Boarding and dropping selection consolidated into a single step
Filters repositioned with visible applied tags
Seat layout improved with clearer labelling
Payment methods grouped for easier comparison
Wireframes were created to validate the improved structure before moving to high-fidelity designs.
Reducing Steps Across the Booking Journey
The redesign focused on refining existing interactions and removing friction not introducing unnecessary features.
1. Simplify the Booking Flow
Redundant steps like repeated boarding/dropping selection were eliminated. The flow was restructured to feel linear, clear, and task-focused.
2. Improve Interaction Consistency
Non-functional elements like the calendar and map were redesigned to match user expectations. Familiar patterns were prioritised to build predictability and trust.
3. Strengthen Visual Hierarchy
Information was reorganised to surface key actions. Improved spacing, alignment, and grouping help users scan content more efficiently.
4. Enhance Feedback & Error Prevention
Real-time validation and clearer system feedback were added to reduce errors during form filling and payment.
5. Align with Industry Standards
Competitor insights were applied to create a more intuitive filter system, clearer seat layout, and structured payment grouping.
Phase 4 / Final UI
A Clearer, More Intuitive Booking Experience
The final redesigned screens present a simplified and intuitive bus booking experience. The improved layout and flow guide users smoothly from search to payment, creating a faster and more user-friendly journey.'
The Transformation: Before vs. After
Before: The booking flow was fragmented, with unclear hierarchy, repeated inputs, and poor feedback, making it difficult for users to complete tasks confidently.
After: The redesigned experience introduces a structured, linear flow with clear hierarchy, reduced steps, and real-time feedback enabling faster and more confident booking decisions.
Before
After
Before
Before
After
Before
After
After
Making Booking Faster and Easier
The redesigned booking flow is expected to reduce cognitive load and eliminate unnecessary friction across key stages of the journey. By simplifying steps, improving feedback visibility, and aligning interactions with familiar booking patterns, the platform can enable faster decision-making and increase user confidence.
Clearer seat layouts, structured payment grouping, and real-time validation build trust at the most critical conversion stage.
What I Learned from the Redesign
— Small inconsistencies in interaction patterns can significantly impact user trust
— Functional completeness doesn't guarantee usability — clarity and feedback matter equally
— Reducing redundant steps directly improves efficiency and satisfaction
— Payment stages require extra attention to hierarchy, grouping, and reassurance
— Competitive benchmarking is valuable for understanding evolving user expectations
Reflecting on the Design Process
This project reinforced the value of structured usability evaluation before jumping into visual redesign. It highlighted how deeply users rely on familiar interaction patterns and how even minor friction points affect confidence. If extended further, next steps would include usability testing on the redesigned flow to validate improvements in task completion time, error rate, and user satisfaction ensuring the platform continues to evolve alongside user needs.
VIEW OTHER PROJECTS
Project Research & Discovery
The bus booking journey is well-established across travel platforms — users expect a fast, intuitive flow from route search to payment. The challenge was not to reinvent the system, but to identify usability gaps and align the experience with modern standards. Key user groups identified: daily commuters, occasional travellers, elderly users, and first-time online bookers. Core needs across all groups were clarity, speed, trust, and minimal effort. The end-to-end flow was mapped to surface friction points repetitive inputs, unclear filter behaviour, and weak visual hierarchy forming the foundation for the redesign.
UX Audit
A multi-layered UX audit was conducted combining heuristic evaluation, task flow analysis, competitor benchmarking, and Think Aloud Protocol (TAPA) to identify usability gaps across the booking journey.
1-User Observation & Task Analysis
A moderated usability session was conducted where participants booked tickets on the APSRTC website while thinking aloud. Key pain points included confusion in filter selection, unclear calendar interactions, repeated boarding/dropping inputs, and uncertainty during payment.
User interviews across commuters, occasional travellers, elderly users, and first-time bookers helped uncover expectations around clarity, speed, and trust.
Key Insight Summary
Friction increased across the booking journey, peaking at seat selection and payment where lack of clarity, feedback, and consistency reduced user confidence and led to drop-offs.
These insights revealed that the core issue was not functionality, but lack of clarity and trust at critical stages.
UX Audit
2-Heuristic Evaulation The platform was evaluated against usability principles such as consistency, visibility of system status, error prevention, and visual hierarchy.
Key issues identified:
Unclear filter behavior
Non-functional elements
Redundant steps
Lack of feedback in payment flow
UX Audit
3-Competitor Analysis APSRTC was benchmarked against AbhiBus, RedBus, MakeMyTrip (Bus), and TSRTC across key dimensions such as calendar interaction, filter visibility, seat layout clarity, boarding/drop-off flow, payment grouping, and real-time validation. This analysis highlighted clear experience gaps and informed opportunities to align APSRTC with modern booking standards. Established platforms consistently provided clearer feedback, better visual hierarchy, and more streamlined flows—highlighting gaps in APSRTC’s experience.
Information Architecture
The booking flow was restructured to reduce friction, eliminate redundancy, and improve clarity across key steps. Boarding and dropping selection consolidated into a single step
-Filters repositioned with visible applied tags
-Seat layout improved with clearer labelling
-Payment methods grouped for easier comparison Wireframes were created to validate the improved structure before moving to high-fidelity designs.
The findings were synthesized into actionable insights that guided the redesign and improved the booking flow.
User interviews were conducted with daily commuters, occasional travelers, elderly users, and first-time online bookers to understand their expectations and booking behaviors.
Design Solutions
The redesign focused on addressing key friction points identified during the audit by simplifying interactions, improving clarity, and strengthening user trust across critical stages of the booking journey.
Stage 1: Search & Discovery
Solution Approach:
1) Visible filter tags with quick removal
2) Clear hierarchy for faster scanning
3) Structured result cards for easy comparison
Outcome:Enabled quicker decision-making and reduced early-stage friction.
Stage 2: Seat Selection
Solution Approach:
1) Redesigned seat map with clear legends and states
2) Improved spacing and visual grouping
3) Standardized layout for better predictability
Outcome:Improved user confidence and faster seat selection.
Stage 3: Passenger Details & Form Filling
Solution Approach:
1) Merged redundant steps into a single flow
2) Added real-time validation for inputs
3) Simplified form structure
Outcome:Reduced user effort and minimized form errors.
Stage 4: Payment & Confirmation
Solution Approach:
1) Grouped payment options for easier comparison
2) Added clear feedback and confirmation states
3) Improved error handling and retry flows
Outcome:Increased trust and reduced drop-offs at the final step.
These improvements collectively streamlined the booking flow, making it more intuitive, efficient, and trustworthy.
Redesign Goals
Eliminate redundant steps and simplify the booking flow 1)Reduce friction across the booking journey
2)Improve clarity in decision-making steps
3)Minimize redundant user inputs
4)Build trust during payment and confirmation
5)Create a faster, more predictable booking experience
Final UI
The final redesigned screens present a simplified and intuitive bus booking experience. The improved layout and flow guide users smoothly from search to payment, creating a faster and more user-friendly journey.
Before & After
Before: The booking flow was fragmented, with unclear hierarchy, repeated inputs, and poor feedback, making it difficult for users to complete tasks confidently. After: The redesigned experience introduces a structured, linear flow with clear hierarchy, reduced steps, and real-time feedback enabling faster and more confident booking decisions.
Before
After
Before
After
After
Before
Before
After
Wireframing & Iteration
Low-fidelity wireframes were used to test improved layouts and validate interactions. Multiple explorations refined information hierarchy, CTA placement, and error handling before moving to final designs.
Design Strategy
The redesign focused on refining existing interactions and removing friction not introducing unnecessary features.
1. Simplify the Booking Flow
Redundant steps like repeated boarding/dropping selection were eliminated. The flow was restructured to feel linear, clear, and task-focused.
2. Improve Interaction Consistency
Non-functional elements like the calendar and map were redesigned to match user expectations. Familiar patterns were prioritised to build predictability and trust.
3. Strengthen Visual Hierarchy
Information was reorganised to surface key actions. Improved spacing, alignment, and grouping help users scan content more efficiently.
4. Enhance Feedback & Error Prevention
Real-time validation and clearer system feedback were added to reduce errors during form filling and payment.
5. Align with Industry Standards
Competitor insights were applied to create a more intuitive filter system, clearer seat layout, and structured payment grouping.
Expected Impact
The redesigned booking flow is expected to reduce cognitive load and eliminate unnecessary friction across key stages of the journey. By simplifying steps, improving feedback visibility, and aligning interactions with familiar booking patterns, the platform can enable faster decision-making and increase user confidence.Clearer seat layouts, structured payment grouping, and real-time validation build trust at the most critical conversion stage.
Key Learnings
— Small inconsistencies in interaction patterns can significantly impact user trust
— Functional completeness doesn't guarantee usability — clarity and feedback matter equally
— Reducing redundant steps directly improves efficiency and satisfaction
— Payment stages require extra attention to hierarchy, grouping, and reassurance
— Competitive benchmarking is valuable for understanding evolving user expectations
Reflections
This project reinforced the value of structured usability evaluation before jumping into visual redesign. It highlighted how deeply users rely on familiar interaction patterns and how even minor friction points affect confidence. If extended further, next steps would include usability testing on the redesigned flow to validate improvements in task completion time, error rate, and user satisfaction ensuring the platform continues to evolve alongside user needs.
