Uber Ride-Sharing Function Extension
Project Team: Eryue Xu, Weiyi Ma, Xirui He
Timeline: 5 weeks
Location: UCSD, San Diego, CA
My role: UX Research &UX Design
Research: Co-designed and spread out surveys and conducted user interviews.
Design: Paper prototype making, Lo-fi wireframes drawing and iteration of hi-fi prototype.
Overview
Assume you and your pals are heading to a party in a different part of the city. You want to use Uber yet also save money and travel securely. Our ride-sharing feature made carpooling safer without additional fees. Enjoy your ride by taking it with your closest pals!
Design Motivation
Each member of our team has paid a greater fee for extending a stop to pick up someone we know, while the other passengers are unable to locate the car in the allotted 3 minutes (because Uber does not allow stopping for more than 3 minutes). Furthermore, as college students, we typically choose the car-pool option to save money. This may entail sharing transportation with strangers, which may present dangers.
By providing a new capability to Uber, we tend to offer safety to the carpooling community.
Design Overview
Optimizing pick up order
It is impossible in real life for users who request an Uber ride to always be the one who wishes to be picked up first.
When a request is placed, the optimal pickup order feature will automatically assist consumers in selecting the most time-efficient and cost-effective pickup order.
Adding friends through contacts
After connecting your contacts to Uber, you may choose friends from your contacts list. When selecting numerous friends, the profile will be displayed at the top bar to allow for faster adding and removing. Then, send out an invitation and wait for reaction from your friends!
Flexibility for user2
Your friend will get notified once you send out the invitation. They can edit and confirm their pickup point. Once they complete filling in the pickup point, Uber will find the nearby driver for you.
Visualization of the pickup process
Users may supervise the pickup process with an explicit notice and view the driver detail when the driver picks up users.
Entertainment purpose
76.7% of responders reflecting entertainment is the main reason for a user to use the carpooling
Save money
91% of all responders reflecting they use carpooling to save money
Efficiency
73.1% of all responders want to track the car and know the exact arrival time
Safety
90.5% of all responders want to make sure they are safe when sharing ride with other people
Findings
After collecting responses through surveys and conducted user interviews for their purpose and expectations about carpooling, here are some mostly raised issues.
User Research
Users have no control of what people will they be paired with when taking an Uber pool
• Several female participants claimed that they would not take a shared ride at night.
• Most of the participants who does not like to use carpool function said that they don’t like to share a ride with strangers.
Users have no control of what time they will be picked up when using “add stop” function
• Time-convenience is extremely crucial for employed passengers
• Pick up time need to be punctual
Problem Statement
How might we help Uber pool users save money and commute safely to work or group activities？
User Persona
According to the data, our target users are young individuals in their twenties who do not own a car but wish to travel with their friends safely.
Competitive Audit
As we learn more about our users, we may move on to our rivals. We selected Lyft, Waze Carpool, and Scoop to assess each app's merits and limitations in order to design our new feature.
Findings
We believe that expanding the Uber pool option to allow customers to choose who goes with them would be the most effective solution for our target audience. It enables users to carpool in real time with individuals they know and with certified drivers in areas where Waze and Scoop are not accessible. Our expanded Uber pool function ensures customer safety as well as cost-effectiveness.
Wireframe
We want to provide users additional alternatives by creating an A/B testing with two versions of the process.
parallelized setting up phases allow users to modify their information more easily.
Workflow A
linear workflow that allows users to operate without having to return to the same page.
Click the picture to see more details!
Workflow B
Click the picture to see more details!
User Testing
To further understand user preferences, we invited three groups of target users to examine the paper prototype and share their thoughts and ideas.
Employee&UnderGrad Student Like： • Prototype A includes a notification that enable user 2 to join in the ride. • Prototype B enable user 2 to add their pick up point before the ride starts. Dislike： • Get confused when they need to add friends. They also got confused by the “plus” sign on the default page on prototype A.
UnderGrad Student Like: • Prototype A preserves the conventional logic flow formed by Uber. This makes them feel natural and sleek. • Prototype B recognize every information for the ride before confirm. Dislike: • Get confused when can’t click start at the very first home page in prototype B.
UnderGrad Student Like: • Prototype A pairs the added stop with the added friend which makes it clear to the users about each rider’s location. • Prototype B lets user 2 to add their pick up point instead of setting it first. Dislike: • Confused by the icon when they need to add a friend.
Employee&UnderGrad Student Like： • Prototype A includes a notification that enable user 2 to join in the ride. • Prototype B enable user 2 to add their pick up point before the ride starts. Dislike： • Get confused when they need to add friends. They also got confused by the “plus” sign on the default page on prototype A.
Findings
Minimalism
• Unnecessary icons and designs divert the user's attention away from the task. They lead users astray and cause them to make a mistake.
• It is a priority for us to eliminate noises in the design. This would assist users in having a clear objective as well as knowing the activities that must be taken to achieve the goal.
Convention
• Convention has a great power over users. We need to fit our redesign smoothly into the current app, and make it easy to understand. It takes time for users to learn about a new interface and a new function. There is also a greater chance for them to make mistakes.
User Control
• Users are sensitive about whether they have enough control on the page. They want to lead the system rather than being guided by the system.
• From user testing results, we think it is important to give user 2 more control over setting the pick-up point and quitting the ride if he/she wishes to.
What if the user wanted a more flexible pick-up order?
The pick-up order is now set up to that user 1 is always the first to be picked up. As going back to user testing, instead of providing a specific location, I simply encourage users to invite their friends on a trip. Several users commented that when they are closer to the destination and want to pick up friends who live a long distance away, they prefer to let the driver pick up other users first.
To solve this obstacle, I added a new feature: "route optimization." The feature can help users determine the most cost-efficient route.
Reflection&
Takeaways
Balance innovation and convention
Let users take control
• As designers, we are continuously striving to develop something new for our users. However, the influence of convention remains strong. During both the user research and testing stages, we discovered that people prefer the workflow/interface with which they are most comfortable, even if they like the new improvements. As a result, we did not put too much effort into reinventing the wheel. Instead, we spent more time studying the existing one and moving it forward.
• The more users feel in charge of the system, the more likely they are to be at ease with it. When faced with a decision, we must allow consumers to alter their minds or even cancel it instantly.
Prepare multiple solutions
• Always provide several alternatives for users to pick from. Users' minds are constrained when there is just one answer. It assists people in exploring their ideas and offering additional guidance by providing numerous solutions.
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