Carpool, not a fan? Let’s try and solve this problem.
An attempt to solve this problem with better UX
The Challenge
The idea of carpooling has been around for a while and everyone is aware that carpooling is one of the best solution to decongest big cities like Delhi. But due to some reason, people are not opting for this and hence the purpose is completely defeated.
There has been many mobile applications, startups who took a shot to solve this problem. But it seems they are failing somewhere, to provide a smooth experience and a hassle free ride.
So, I took this opportunity to find the gap and tried filling it as a UX Designer.
Goal
- To facilitate and engage a welcoming experience for someone looking for a ride or want to share the ride.
- Minimum screens, to keep things simple
- Understand user empathy and design accordingly.
User Personas
I got to interact with few of my fellow colleagues and discussed the idea of carpool with them. We discussed many whats and whys about the topic like, why they weren’t comfortable with carpool? What stops them? What problems they have experienced before? etc.
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This discussion had given me enough knowledge of problems they were struggling with, using them I created 2 user personas.
Problems I found along with possible solutions
Problem #1 : Reliability of a person
Solution : From security point of view this is one of the major aspect, idea for this should be to display past history of the person. Display reviews and ratings and total number of rides shared, so a stranger can feel more comfortable about other riders.
Problem # 2 : Unsure of exact route driver will take
Solution: Start and end destination can be common, but there are many alternative routes to get to the destination. If a user gets to know about the route in advance then he/she can take an informed decision and pick the best option.
Problem # 3: Unsure of detour the driver will take
Solution: No one likes last minute surprises specially the ones that don’t make you happy. To clear the air, the rider and driver should be able to negotiate the exact start and drop point well in advance. For this to happen, they should have a platform to talk and discuss, without personal contact details being shared.
Problem #4: Know something about potential riders
Solution: Awkward silence can be a very painful. To keep riders comfortable during the ride, it will help people to know about fellow riders by knowing informations like mutual facebook friends, likes on facebook. I’ll surely enjoy sharing ride with someone who watches Game Of Thrones or is into technology. We can spend hours talking about who is going to die next 😅
Bonus
Individuals are part of many Whatsapp/ Telegram groups, where they look for people to share rides with. Once a ride is created on the application, user can simply click on share button and share it within the social media group and spread the word. Instead of typing the entire information about the ride.
User Flow
The flow is designed to have minimum screens to navigate along with minimum taps. Quickly create your ride, send invites & accept/ decline. Yes, it should be that simple. No one wants unnecessary actions that won’t get them a ride.
Low-fi Wireframes
1) Creating a Ride
One click to start the process, simply enter basic informations like start and end points along with time. Once done, user can send invites to list of people who are looking for the rides on the same route and also use the share option. to share it within local Whatsapp or Telegram groups to look for potential riders.
2. Chatroom
Chatroom is the place where all the conversations can take place, accepting or rejecting a ride will take place here itself instead of having a different notification screen and then being redirected to chatroom. Her itself the user should be able to see maximum details about next potential rider and make informed decision the share the ride.
Hi-fi Wireframe
Chat here is a multi-purpose chat, not only you talk here, the user can also accept or decline a request to share ride.
On receiving a request, User will be able to see important information about the potential rider. These informations will be about his past rides, ratings, mutual friends on Facebook, mutual likes. By knowing this they will be able to have joyful ride with ample to things to talk about, making a comfortable ride.
The Home page will display list of all rides the user has taken or is scheduled to take in future.
A simple re-create option will allow user to re-create the ride instead of following the entire process and enter the same values everyday.
Conclusion
Carpool will stay the best option to decongest the roads and as hopes to save some bucks on ride by sharing it. It’s about time we understand that the journey is a lot about being comfortable with stranger. Design will have to play a major role in making 2 individuals comfortable with each other and make each other feel welcomed for a better cause.
I’ll be back with another problem :)
