Pool is a modern carpooling app that helps college students and office employees find their ride sharing companions and rides seamlessly
Overview
Pool app was first conceptualised to solve the problem faced by many of my peers at Srishti to find rides and ride sharing companions. Using a Whatsapp group to find people to share a ride with was the problem I chose to tackle.
This application is a concept that solves the problems faced by members of the carpooling app not just in my college but across other institutions and organisations.
My Role
Well, everything (solo project). I worked on this project end to end. All the research, ideation, prototyping, visual identity, testing and refining was done by me in around 3 weeks.
The Context
Students at the college don't always have classes at the same time, there are a lot of inconsistencies in the times at which classes end for various students. So most students don't rely on a regular bus service to travel. This leads to them depending on an informal Whatsapp group where students post messages about their ride destination, the space available and when they plan to leave. This means at any given point there are at-least 10-15 messages on the group about people leaving from point A to point B and there is a lot of clutter on the group for people to sort through.
How might we
Create an effective method for students to find their ride companions
My Process
The Problem
Most issues with the situation were very evident, issues such as people having to scroll through a lot of irrelevant messages while searching for a ride or people texting someone who already got a ride but forgot to delete the message. These became the inefficiencies of the current system. Given that I had never used the Whatsapp group I decided to conduct some primary research, I interviewed a few top users of the group, I myself got onto the group to understand the situation. Below are my processes and findings of the study.
As is Scenario (Posting a Ride)
As is Scenario (Joining a Ride)
Identifying and Grouping Problem Areas
I gathered quite a few insights from my user interviews and informal discussions, I went ahead and grouped the concerns or issues that came up during research to understand the direction in which I might have to think to ideate for the problem. (created a sort of affinity map to group problems and concerns)
User Persona
For most of my design journey I heavily relied on just one persona, a Srishti student who is looking to make it to and from college everyday while trying to save money. But I also wanted to keep in mind a few users who might not necessarily be from Srishti or a student and hence I started considering office going people too.
*While every aspect of the design solution might not be relevant to the secondary persona, it is used to set direction for the future iterations*
Consolidating the Research
Insights
The overwhelming clutter in the shared Whatsapp group impedes users' ability to sort through the messages and find suitable rides, indicating a need for a more organized, filterable display of ride options.
A considerable discomfort arises among users regarding confrontations over punctuality and payments, suggesting that a non-confrontational problem-solving feature might be appreciated.
Many users find it challenging to precisely locate the pick-up and drop-off points, indicating a need for a comprehensive and user-friendly navigation feature.
Users appreciate having control over the selection of ride companions, indicating that flexibility and preference settings are an appreciated aspect of the service.
Those offering rides often face complications when responding to multiple messages simultaneously, signaling the need for an efficient communication system.
The need to delete ride posts manually after a ride is filled is perceived as a source of annoyance – a smoother, automated process would improve user experience.
Users express a desire for an easier way to pay and get paid for rides, pointing toward a need for improvements in the payment system.
The need for a tool to automate payment reminders was highlighted, suggesting further enhancements in payment processes could be beneficial.
Users not deleting filled ride posts lead to a cascade of issues, such as redundant messages and user frustrations, demonstrating a need for automatic or reminder-based post management.
Users appreciate traveling with peers from their organization, alleviating concerns about safety while riding with strangers.
The Competition
Competitive Analysis
Working towards the solution
Ideal Scenario Map
Goals of the Solution
A Ride-sharing Platform that…
Ensures user authenticity by verifying and displaying only those members who belong to the concerned organization.
Provides users with a seamless ride-posting experience, allowing quick location selection for optimal convenience.
Facilitates in-app automatic booking of rides, eliminating the need for multiple applications.
Incorporates glanceable ride cards that succinctly provide vital information such as ride type, cost, departure time, and host.
Offers an integrated payment splitting system for ease of transaction, coupled with regular reminders to ensure prompt settlements.
Delivers real-time information about potential ride companions and their respective locations, promoting seamless coordination.
Utilizes Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to recommend rides that users are most likely to opt for, enhancing service efficiency.
Pays attention to edge cases by giving users the flexibility to add people to the ride at a later stage or start the ride before the scheduled time for maximum adaptability."
Gives users the power to control who can join their rides, ensuring comfort and personal preference.
Laying the foundations
Information Architecture and Flows
Paper Wireframes
Defining Pool
Visual Identity
Validating Pool
Testing the Ride Posting Flow
While most of the flow worked well for users, they were all confused with the step where they had to choose if they wished to wait until all the open spots in their ride filled to leave or if they wanted to leave at the intended time even if the spots were not filled.
I also unearthed some accessibility issues in the flow at a later stage which I had to fix. In addition I also came across a few edge cases for which I had to revamp my outcome.
Prototype - Testing
The importance of writing in UX
Due to the unclear wording of the header and the buttons in this screen, many users reported that they didn't really understand what it meant.
I iterated a bit more, took help from my "english speaking" friends and came up with a few options and performed A/B testing to finalise an option that worked better.
The Old Screen
Option A - Undesired Option
Option B - Preferred Screen
Creating an effortless experience
Final Designs
After a lot of iterating, testing and feedback collection, these are the final sets of design outcomes I came up with. With more time I would want to work on a few more aspects and features of the product, such as the ping interface, posting a ride with your own vehicle and much more.
The Ride Card
This ride card is one of the most important artefacts for the platform to function, it was crafted keeping in mind the basic information the user would need. Ensuring that they know about the ride in a simple glance. This pattern is reused in various other parts of the application to simplify how users interact with the platform.
Learnings and Reflection
Throughout the journey of solving this problem I was able to understand the importance of empathising with the users and understanding the context to solve a problem. I was introduced to system level thinking while designing this platform thanks to its complex nature. I realised how edge cases need to be accounted for and how to look for them while designing a solution. I had fun working on this project and hope you liked it.
I would like to thank all the facilitators who guided me through this project and also thank my friends for helping me carry out the research, testing and feedback sessions.
A wild thought
As a speculation project I tried to create a concept application of Pool for the Apple Vision Pro. Just for fun. Do check it out.
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