Dhaka Metro: Designing a Commuter App
Client
DMTCL
Type
Mobile App Design, Requirement Elicitation, UX Research
Background:
DMTCL operates Dhaka's metro rail. A transit system that changed how a huge, congestion choked city moves. But the digital side of that experience hadn't caught up to the physical one. This project came to us not as an open brief, but as a response to an RFP. And it had one core ask at its center: an NFC-based metro card recharge feature, letting commuters top up their physical card balance through their phone via NFC, instead of queuing at a station kiosk. We had three days to respond.
Team Composition
Challenge:
An RFP tells you what a client thinks they needs. But it doesn't ask us to address the messier, more human parts of commuting in Dhaka. For example not knowing if a delay is coming, not being sure which language a public service should default to, not having any visibility into how a metro trip compares to sitting in traffic. So the challenge was really three challenges stacked on top of each other: NFC-based recharge needed to feel instant and trustworthy on the first try, with no room for a confusing failure state when someone's balance is on the line. Decide, fast, how far past the brief to go. With three days on the clock, minute counted We had to judge quickly and execute real IA and hi-fi design in three days, as a three-person team. Not sequentially, but in parallel, with enough shared structure that our individual screens wouldn't drift out of sync with each other before we ever got to review anything as a group. And the best part? Design for a genuinely mixed-literacy, mixed-language user base, where Bangla/English toggling isn't a nice-to-have. It's baseline accessibility, even under time pressure.
The solution:
The NFC recharge flow: Designed the core tap-to-recharge experience: card linking, an NFC scan state with clear real-time feedback, amount entry, confirmation, and an instant updated balance. As reassuring as handing cash to a station attendant.
Lightweight IA: As a three-person team working in parallel, we mapped every module the app would need. Accounts, wallet, journey tools, station/network info, notifications, safety, sustainability, and support/legal; in a fast, shared structure to keep three people's screens consistent with each other.
Core account flows: Secure registration, login/logout, and linking an existing physical metro card is the necessary scaffolding around the NFC flow, designed to feel low-friction rather than bureaucratic.
Language Localization: Even under a three-day clock, multi-language support was designed in from the start recognizing that a meaningful share of Dhaka's commuters are more comfortable navigating in Bangla.
Additional features: Journey planning, fare calculation, and station maps. Added on top of the RFP's core ask, these three tools were designed to answer the actual question commuters have before they leave the house: how do I get there, what will it cost, and where do I go once I'm at the station.
Proactive notifications: Designed to push relevant information to the user rather than making them check the app defensively, which matters most in exactly the moments when trust in the system is most fragile.
Network information, points of interest, and emergency contacts: Extended the app's value past the trip itself. Treating the app as a broader companion to the commute, not just a ticketing tool.
Sustainability and educational content: Carbon and time savings tracking, plus educational video content aimed at giving commuters a reason to feel good about the choice to take transit, not just a reason to tolerate it.
Documentation and Help: Support, legal, and trust infrastructure. FAQs, customer service chat, emergency helplines, and comprehensive legal/privacy policies, designed to be easy to find rather than buried, even with limited time to spare on it.
Learnings
The most valuable work on this project happened before any screen was drawn. in the gap between what the document asked for and what commuters actually needed, and in having the judgment to propose filling that gap to a client who hadn't asked for it. Speed forces prioritization you might otherwise avoid. Three days meant we couldn't design ten features to the same depth. Designing for a transit system means designing for people who didn't choose to be your user in the way a consumer app's user did, they chose the metro, and the app just has to not get in the way. That reframes almost every feature decision: notifications should reduce anxiety, not add engagement-bait; language support isn't a market-expansion feature, it's table stakes.