The Iconography of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) - A Focus Group Study
Authors: Richardson Joy , Kim Jisun , Howarth Henrietta , Preston John 
Published: February 2023

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) smartphone applications (apps) are designed
to allow users to plan, book, pay for and navigate journeys across a range
of travel modes including own or shared car, active travel (walking, running
and cycling), micromobility (e-scooters and e-bikes) and public transport.
By giving the user trip-specific information about each mode it is hoped
MaaS may provide a solution to increasing the use of sustainable travel
options whilst encouraging active travel, thereby reducing car use. MaaS
apps are being adopted to help develop healthy, liveable urban spaces
worldwide.Typically in app design, due to the limited screen size of a
mobile phone, icons are frequently used to depict physical artefacts such a
vehicle types and items in the real-world environment but also to convey the
non-physical such as instructions and waiting times. Icons are used for
these purposes as they take up less space than text and should be able to be
universally understood. In order to make MaaS accessible to all members of
the community icons need to be easily interpreted without the need for prior
knowledge or learning. As these apps are being developed concurrently by
both commercial and public organisations in many countries it is becoming
clear that the icons used within the interface by developers vary a great
deal. Yet it is not clear which of the icons are most effective in conveying
specific meanings. In order to determine which icons should be used in a new
MaaS app currently in development six focus groups were held in which
members of the public were asked to comment on a variety of icons from three
MaaS apps. 22 participants were recruited of which 14 were women and 8 men.
This followed a model which had been previously used in the icon design in
interfaces for automated driving. The participants considered the icons out
of context individually in workbooks and then in context as a group,
explaining what they thought the meaning was, based on form, interpretations
based on colour and the ability to be understood by a diverse population.
Finally, in a group discussion, participants compared icons from each of the
different apps that were intended to have similar meanings. This was in
order to understand which elements they liked, disliked and their preferred
choice of icon. The participant’s comments were thematically analysed and
commonly occurring design aspects were identified. These included confusion
arising from the use of almost identical icons representing different
artefacts across different apps, for example a bus representing a vehicle in
some apps and a bus stop in others. Findings suggested concepts such as
multi-modal travel or all public transport were considered hard to represent
graphically and needed text labels. The most commonly discussed topic
related to the use of colour. Discussions indicated lessons learnt by the
participants from other domains were applied to the icons in the MaaS app.
This meant the use of colour was imbued with meaning even where none was
intended, particularly the use of red where it was frequently interpreted
this meant that there were problems with those services such as delays or
cancellations. Results of this study were used to develop a set of design
guidelines for future icon design within MaaS Apps.