Design for first-time traveler experience
8M first-time riders, 1/3 never return
Field research
Problem reframing
UX design
Independent iteration
Image generated by Midjourney
8 Million Riders:
1/3 Never Return
CONTEXT
The business problem
Amtrak's goal is to double ridership to 66 million trips within the next decade.
The most direct lever: first-time riders. 8 million of them take Amtrak every year, but 1 in 3 never come back.
Client voice
"Nearly 1/3 of customers ride only once. If we can convert even a fraction of these one-and-done travelers into repeat riders, we'll be well on our way to doubling ridership to 66 million trips."
— Amtrak Leadership
Our brief
We were tasked with understanding why first-time riders don't return, and designing solutions to change that.
First Principles Over
First Assumptions
RESEARCH & REFRAME
Through three rounds of research, we challenged the original problem space and reframed in time:
Users are defined by behavior, not labels.
The problem isn't missing resources, it's missing delivery.
Travelers and staff were stuck by the scattered pain points
Station infrastructure mapped
A first-time traveler's actual path through the station
Travelers
Repeatedly checking tickets, uncertainty never fully resolved
Visible signs of confusion: furrowed brows, hesitant movement
Could only get answers by finding a staff member to confirm
Staffs
"The most repeated questions are about when and where to board"
— information desk staff
"We identify first-time travelers by those who appear confused or unsure as they enter"
— station staff
We were tasked with understanding why first-time riders don't return, and designing solutions to change that.
"Good ideas, but it won't really solve the problem"
We brought our first concept to a co-workshop with Amtrak employees, their response was honest: the ideas had merit, and some were already being explored internally. But something more fundamental was missing, and everyone in the room could feel it.
That response sent us back to the field. This time, instead of mapping pain points, we mapped Amtrak's existing resources against every user need we'd identified. What we found reframed everything.
Co-workshop with Amtrak employees
The real problem lies in missing delivery
Amtrak already has answers to nearly every question a lost traveler might ask. The infrastructure exists. But none of it reaches users until after confusion has set in. Which led us to this ignored stage: has the service been proactively delivered to the users?
That realization also changed who we were designing for. "First-time traveler" is just a label, we shouldn’t be trapped by it. What’s truly important is the shared behavior pattern beneath it. Anyone who doesn't know what to do next counts.
User
Before
After
User
People taking Amtrak for the first time
Anyone who shares a similar sense of unfamiliarity with the Amtrak experience
Direction
Fix each pain point individually
Close the information gap proactively, at every stage of the journey
A Proactive, Hybrid System
Built Around The Journey
DESIGN
Instead of fixing individual pain points, we designed a system that anticipates what unfamiliar travelers need, and delivers it before they have to ask.
Proactive Journey Guidance
Addressing rider uncertainty through three layers of support
The reframe pointed to a clear direction: close the information gap proactively, across every stage of the journey.
We designed a digital-physical hybrid system with two core interventions: stage-based guidance and indoor navigation, supported by a unified physical signage redesign.
Layer1: Proactive Journey Guidance (Temporal)
Contextual notifications delivered at each journey stage, so travelers always know what to do next without having to ask.
Taking it further
After the course ended, I redesigned the full UX flow independently — from booking to trip end.
After booking
All your trips, tracked in one place (e.g. departure times, train info and ticket status), are visible the moment you open the app.
At the station
Stage-based prompts surface the right information at the right moment (e.g. station guide, food options, gate reminder). When you need more, the indoor map takes you there, step by step.
Approaching destination &
Trip end
Live stop progress keeps you oriented onboard. As you approach your destination, a proactive alert walks you through the station ahead. Once you arrive, local services are surfaced, and the trip closes with a feedback prompt.
What Leading This Project
Has Taught Me
REFLECTION
First principles over given frameworks
The client came with a problem definition already in hand. It would have been easy to work within it. But the research kept pointing elsewhere, and following that signal meant stepping outside the given frame entirely.
User voices carried more weight than any argument we could have made
Our Amtrak contact initially pushed back, they wanted us to stay focused on the "first-time traveler" label. We didn't argue. We brought back the user voices, laid out the logic, and let the pattern speak for itself. By the end, they arrived at the same conclusion we had. That's a different outcome than winning an argument.
A pivot lands better when the team sees the necessity, not just the decision
When we decided to abandon our first concept, the team felt it as a loss. My job as lead wasn't to push forward — it was to reframe what had happened. The first round of research wasn't wasted; it showed us exactly which direction wouldn't work. That distinction mattered. A team that understands why it's pivoting moves differently than one that's just told to.