The Project

RideMates is a mobile app that connects students with carpool drivers by reinventing carpool applications in terms of class schedules and universities. Students can book rides in advance safely while knowing their carpool drivers background through the necessary university student information requirement. The app provides and efficient way to help students reach classes on time through an easy portal.

Role:
UX Designer
Researcher
‍

Date:
8 Weeks

Skills:
Figma (Prototyping), Adobe Photoshop (Branding assets) Miro (User research: Pain points)

Part 1

Discover and understand users

This section is all about discovering and understanding the user's needs, goals, and pain points. I set myself a few research goals before getting started.

Understand current solutions and the competitive analysis -> ux research
Determine possible ways to connect students safely -> top priority
Learn as much as possible about my potential users -> students

Survey and user characteristics

Between the ages of 18 and 25
Student at a university
Does not have access to personal transport
Resident and International students

I sent out a user using Google Forms and received 60 responses.

Survey Question outline

What mode of transportation do you use to go to your university?
Do you feel safe when using transportation services?
If you carpool, how reliable do you find carpool drivers for your daily commute?
How often have you experienced cancellations or unreliability with ride-sharing services?

User feedback

Here’s what some of the users said when asked about using various transports to reach campus.

Class timing do not always align with finding a carpool reaching right before the class or it's just too expensive.

Most carpool drivers are unreliable as their main focus is on traveling city to city (far distances).

A lot of the times if I have an evening class when taking an Uber i feel a sense of security is missing.

They are also...unreliable as they could cancel at any time causing the student to miss class.

The competition

These are the 2 digital transport booking tools that came up most often in survey responses. My goal was to compare what features they had to offer in order to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.

Pros:

Easy, on-demand transportation service
Timely location and ETA notifications
Secure, electronic payment system
Driver accountability and feedback

Cons:

Restricted coverage in some areas

Pros:

Wide network across Ontario
Timely and predictable train/bus schedules
Seamless connections with local transportation
Accommodations for passengers with disabilities

Cons:

Some areas may have limited service coverage

Part 2

Problem definition & ideation

At this stage it was time to re-define my goal and narrow down its scope based on the insights I gained from users. Because of the short timeline for this project, I chose to focus on a single feature.

Problem statement

Students may need an easy and convenient method of transportation to go to class. Most students struggle to find a car ride to university in accordance to the time of their class.

The idea

A trip planning feature

To address the users pain points I decided to design a carpool application with an option to connect with drivers through class schedules. It would make the app a “one-stop” to plan and book daily carpool rides. The planning feature would let users:

Start planning a trip in advance so that they can be notified about drivers information and check out the existing and upcoming students they will share a ride with.

Browse drivers and chat so they can easily find the most comfortable ride to class.

Scroll through the match option to check out driver ratings, attending university, and driving experience.

Feature requirements

Be convenient

Allow users to plan all aspects of their trip
No restrictions to surrounding areas near users university or college

Be transparent and trustworthy

Always displays the source of content: Name, age, university credentials, driving review
Ratings and reviews are given on the match a ride page.

Part 3

Visual design & prototyping

This section demonstrates the designed solution, from the style guide to a high-fidelity prototype. Figma was used as the design tool.

Style guide

I kept the colors simple and chose a modern style which is easy to read on all screens, incorporating a warm tone of blue and yellow representing safety and comfort.

Final mockups

Security and Safety

Focusing on the values of providing users authenticated safety, upon signing up users are provided verification steps by providing university and contact details proceeding to activated 2 Factor Authentication through DUO Mobile used across universities in Ontario, Canada.

Last words

Usability testing: I did not have time to carry out intensive user testing in this project. Ideally, I have liked to incorporate feedback from users on the designs through usability testing at various stages of the design process.
The design is only meant to demonstrate an idea, to show how students daily struggles could be interrogated and designed into a carpool app.
The schedule feature has not been designed in its entirety, therefore user can only carry out the first few steps of planning a carpool ride: searching a time, area and day then browsing matches.
The rest of the apps features (upload a schedule, offer a ride, etc.) have not been designed