Improving service alerts for passengers on light rail, commuter rail, and buses.
As a Web Design Intern for the country's fastest growing transit agency, I researched and redesigned the agency's alerts pages to better communicate service disruptions and delays to riders. From initial peer analysis to final handoff, I ensured that the final prototype was responsive across multiple devices, accessible, and consistent with the existing design system.
DURATION
Nov 2025 - Jan 2026
ROLE
Web Design Intern
TEAM
1 PM, 1 Researcher, 2 Designers
BACKGROUND
Passengers in the Puget Sound region rely on Soundtransit.org to view alert information for their most used routes (including buses, light rail, and commuter rail).
41M boardings in 2025
System will 2x in length by 2041
WHY REDESIGN IT?
Previous research in 2023 left 2 areas of the current page unanswered.
OUR HYPOTHESIS
Including lines with normal service and non-elevator related station alerts will improve passengers' experience with the home and alerts page.
PEER AGENCY ANALYSIS
How do other transit agencies display normal service on their home, route, and station pages?
I worked with another designer to compile examples of what existing transit agencies are doing to show lines with normal service. Our analysis included 8 global and national transit agencies.
MBTA (Boston)
Green dot + Normal Service text
MTA (New York City)
Separate section titled "No Active Alerts"
TransLink (Queensland)
Icon (checkmark / yellow triangle) + text
INITIAL EXPLORATIONS
Displaying normal service on both the home page and service alerts page.
Taking inspiration from the peer agencies we reviewed and considering our existing design system, I drafted initial explorations of what normal service tags could look like.
These explorations included combinations of iconography (checkmark), color, and copy observed throughout the peer agency analysis.
INTRODUCING CHANGES
After meeting with the digital team, we landed on 2 different displays of "normal" service and 1 redesigned Station section.
"NORMAL" TAGS
STATIONS SECTION
Option 1
Green "Normal" tag matches the style of existing yellow alert tags.
Option 2
The use of icons communicate route status more universally.
USER TESTING
Conducting moderated usability testing with 12 participants.
Participants were a mix of riders and nonriders outside of WA state. I proposed additional topics (including the individual route page and passenger's thoughts on the clickability of alert tags) to include in the test plan.
INSIGHTS
Passengers liked the inclusion of normal service and non-elevator alerts. But how (and where) to display them was another challenge.
8/12 supported adding routes with no alerts to the home page. However, opinions about which tag style best communicated normal service were split.
10/12 preferred the redesigned Stations section, with reservations about iconography.
Users expected alert tags to be a clickable object, leading them to further information about the route's alerts.
ITERATING
After learning that users expected to be able to click on alert tags, our approach to "normal" tags changed.
We now needed to emphasize alert tags (displayed next to routes with alerts) as clickable, whilst "de-emphasizing" normal tags (displayed next to routes with no alerts) as non-clickable.
APPROACH 1
Combine the 2 alert tag styles.
✅ Visually differentiates lines with alerts vs lines with no alerts.
✅ Lack of border around Normal de-emphasizes it as a clickable object.
❌ Lacks visual cohesion.
APPROACH 2 (CHOSEN)
Use a deactivated button for the "Normal" tag, and replace "Normal" with "No alerts".
✅ Maintains visual consistency between the alert and normal tags.
✅ The wording "No alerts" is more specific and reduces ambiguity associated with the word "Normal"
❌ Removes green checkmark, which users found helpful during testing.
FURTHER ITERATING
To gather more insights about the Stations section, we met with the Passenger Information Coordination (PIC) team.
The PIC team at Sound Transit writes out the system's alerts. Through conversations with them, we decided that any non-conveyance related alerts (such as parking garage closures) would go under the "Announcements" subsection.
We also agreed upon the pindrop icon as a suitable icon replacement for the Stations section, as it's currently used on the TripPlanner (Sound Transit's beta mobile app) and is a universally recognized symbol for "place".
FINAL STATE
The new passenger alerts pages bring clarity to passengers by displaying all expected routes, with route status clearly visualized.
HOME PAGE
SERVICE ALERTS PAGE
A comprehensive view of the system.
Passengers can now view all lines, even those without alerts, on the Service Alerts page. The stations section mirrors the home page, showing both elevator and non-elevator related alerts.
ROUTES & SCHEDULES PAGE
HANDOFF
After weeks working on this project, I finalized and prepared a handoff file along with the other design intern to wrap up my redesign of the "Passenger Alerts" experience!
Our handoff file included:
Happy path interactions, empty states
Notes and annotations about new components / icons
Component interactions and triggers
Mobile and desktop flow
Handoff file
REFLECTION
Learnings & Lessons
Working on a broad-reaching and public-facing project felt daunting at first. Although our design exploration started off small, the scope of our redesign gradually grew, and constraints arose that we hadn't considered earlier. Through the challenges, this project shaped me into a more thoughtful, system-minded designer.
🗑️ Be open to unexpected insights, and let them change your design process and priorities
While our 2 explorations of the "Normal" tag didn't have a clear winner, testing them led us to the insight that users expect interactivity from alert tags. This wasn't the outcome that I had hoped, but it was a good reminder that usability testing isn't just about validation, but also about understanding parts of the experience that would've been otherwise overlooked.
🚉 Don't ignore physical infrastructure
Working on my laptop, it was easy to overlook how passenger alerts are actually communicated within stations. The PIC team helped us understand which existing icons are being phased out throughout the system, helping us choose our replacement icon for the Stations section.
✉️ Push the envelope within reason
Our exploration began as a project to resolve 2 areas of the website, but we quickly uncovered additional insights from usability testing that we wanted to address. Advocating for changes beyond the original scope taught me that as a designer, I'm able to voice my opinions within reason as a champion for the overall user experience!
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