Raido Case Study: A match up design carpool app designed for
students 📲
In this case study, I am sharing my process and insight on design decisions. I will show my method to ideate, research ,prototype and various insights regarding my design decision,Lets get started
Overview🤿
Raido is a simple carpool app only for students to find a ride with a partner which they can schedule according to them with respective date and time. It serves as a trip planner which helps students commnute who drive to the campus so that they can go along to campus. Raido aims to serve as an alternative way of commute for students with ease and joy 🥳
The problem statment 💢
Have you ever experienced the frustration of getting late for class or work due to traffic? I always hear people complain about their commute to class, and this made me curious about the overall experience of my batchmates.
Target Users 🥸
- Students
Research 🧑🏻🔬
I conducted a survey with 10 friends standing in a queue outside the college waiting for their bus & those who come by their personal vehicle. The aim was to validate my assumptions regarding the problems faced by them while commuting
After 1st round of user research, I found students who live off-campus mostly use the following means to commute
Here comes my design question
“What are the major pain points of commuters and how can we optimize their experience with a product solution?”
Discovery 🗝
In order to locate pain points and build empathy with users, I conducted five semi-structured interviews with the target audiences who are students currently living off-campus. I found that among the five interviewees, none of them are satisfied with the current commute experience and they are suffering from some negative emotions.
From here, the image of how I want to make this app to help with the commute issues for local students starts to become clearer. I want to alleviate the anxiety and stress that uncertainty of the commute process brings to the students, and make the commute fun and smooth.
Design Process 🤯
simply, the whole process is based on Human-centric Design approach which is divided in to 5 steps :
- Empthaize: Understanding the users needs involved.
- Ideate: Re-framing and defining the problem in human-centric ways.
- Define: Creating many ideas in ideation sessions.
- Prototype: Adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping.
- Test: Developing a prototype/solution to the problem.
Who am i Designing for ?
We must know our target audience to create solutions for them unless and untill we dont know anything about our targeted user, we are just putting out an alternative not a solution for them likewise it will be just a design not a solution
From starting my main aim was to make an app for students and as a student, I also face the same issue, so I thought to give it a try to just go for a casual interview to get some more interesting information , I just got some insights from both sides where the one of a friend is a passenger and the other friend is Driver who comes with personal vehicle
Ideation 🌤
After brain stroming and sketching i finally decided to implement a match up mobile application solution , which conncets people who drove to campus and people who need a ride to campus
Design Decision 💡
What kind of match-up mechanism should I apply?
To understand how the match-up mechanism is being addressed by other ride-sharing apps, I did a comparative analysis and found that:
- Uber/Ola is on the passive side since passengers wait to be matched up with a driver based on the route
- Private cabs allows users to browse available drivers that go the same way and therefore provide a higher level of initiative for passengers, but the request will be sent manually to match up with a driver
Since one of the goals of my solution is to alleviate the anxiety of passengers, I don’t think let them waiting for an offer from drivers in uncertainty will be a good idea. So I decided to apply automatically match-up algorithm based on time and route, and also pass the initiative to the passengers and let them send the request to drivers.
💡How to keep the cost low for passengers while also provide enough incentives for drivers?
Based on user research and interviews, the major pain point of students who drive to campus is parking. Ideally, Raido will cooperate with the college, and drivers will get account credit or reserved free parking spot on campus after a successful trip, while passengers don’t need to pay but provide rating and comment to the driver. Some students also point out the need for meeting new people, so car-pooling might serve as an opportunity for them to develop a further relationship.
User Flow➡️
Then i have started to build the user flow for accomplishing different tasks within the app. I have covered from the perspective of the user/student who comes for the very first time to create an account.
The below flow explains the user flow concerning the system flow diagram
Iterations ♻️
Based on the insights gained from the research and wireframe I generated, I crafted a paper prototype and high-fidelity prototype. However, the usability testing reveals lots of issues with the current interface layout as well as information architecture. Combined with self-critique, the hi-fi prototype has experienced several rounds of iterations based on the feedback from users
Key Finding : The homepage and match-up process is confusing for users During the tests, I noticed that most users spend a while looking at the “my week” page (homepage) and trying to understand it.
They don’t know how the system work and what to do next, and several factors below caused this problem
Lets See This all from starting 😉
- Onboarding & Splash Screen 📲
Login or Create an Account 🗝
Start Creating Trip 🚗
Select Time & Date ⏰
Start Creating Match & chill 🍵
After sending the request to Driver ✇
App Notification ✈️
Final Design 🌟
Now I want to go back to the last question, as well as my design goal: How will this solution help to alleviate the feeling of uncertainty and anxiety of users and make the commute trip joyful?
For passengers:
Allow users to plan their commute trip in advance
Allow users to communicate their drivers closely via a chat function, and also the option to reach out by calling just in case
Send reminders to the users before the trip to let them double-check all the details as well as reminding them that they are “well-organized” to go to class
For Drivers:
Provide free reserved parking spot for them on campus to avoid the rush before class and also the cost
Provide an opportunity for users to expand their social network and develop further relationships
Future Steps 🤔
Due to time limitation, Raido still has a lot of features remain unimplemented. The current design still has huge room for improvement and more research would be necessary to realize some possibilities.
💡What if no match available?
The user will get a notification, something like “Unfortunately there’s no driver that matches your schedule. Don’t worry! We will keep searching for you and let you know when there is!”. Besides, 48 or 72 hours before the departure time, the system will send a notification to users again if there’s still no driver available and allow them time to seek other plans.
💡What if the driver canceled the ride?
Users will get a notification too and the system will keep searching for other matches and let users know 48 or 72 hours before the departure time. Drivers who cancel too many times may be forbidden to use the app again. Accordingly, passengers should try to avoid cancellation, too
💡What will happen after the ride if no payment is needed
The passenger will be asked to rate the driver and leave a quick comment to describe the driver. Such as “on time” or “friendly”, and these will be references for other passengers.
💡Any other ways to add schedules?
I also came up with the option to allow users to import their schedules from the Google calendar. Further research would be needed to see if it’s feasible
