NightRide Go
Empowered college student’s evening journey home with control and safety
Type
Case Study
Team
Product Designer (me) +
UX Researcher (Suzy Zhan)
Problem
Bittersweet transportation experience
However, students are unwilling to use the service because of complicated pickup rules, unpredictable schedule, and the resulting compromised night safety.
Solution
A mobile app for students to book and schedule rides and to be virtually guarded during the trip home
For this app, I designed three main flows and features:
Flow 1: book and track ride
User can select the operating ride based on their schedule and track the ride status, fixed pickup locations, and flexible drop-off locations before, during, and after the trip.
Flow 2: schedule ride
User can schedule a ride for later trip according to wanted departure or arrival time and be notified when the trip is about to start.
Flow 3: virtual guard
User can turn on a virtual guard to share live location with UW Police Department not only when waiting outside but walking home after being dropped off, and be notified to turn it off once the trip ends.
Problem discovery
Need for commuting safely at night vs. underused evening shuttle services
As a student who commutes three times a week at late night, taking NightRide service has always been a bittersweet experience. It is free for all UW students and runs until 2 am; on the other hand, students still prefer public transits over this much safer commuting option. Why?
Operation zone map and unusable schedule and tracking service
White paper research
Is NightRide service even being used? Who are using it? I looked up some stats from school reports to have a better understanding on these high-level questions.
Data from Transportation Services 2018-2020 Report
Article from The Daily UW
Study plan
To uncover the deep reason of this dissatisfied service, I made two assumptions and four objectives for the user study plan.
Four objectives
Assumption 1
Students want a safe, reliable way to get home at night.
Assumption 2
Students rely on smartphones and would use an app for mobility needs.
Understand users
Who, what, and why
To delve into the needs and goals of users, I conducted the user study by using both qualitative and quantitative methods.
Survey
Before diving deeper into any qualitative study, I decided to use a survey to surface general use patterns, user profiles, and other key experiential challenges through a quantitative lens.
I was able to receive 36 responses and all of them are UW students ranging from freshmen to graduate students.
Interview + field study
For exploratory purpose, I went to several pickup spots and took some rides in order to have a closer experience with the service. To gather more qualitative data from real users, I also interviewed 6 students from survey respondents and analyzed the results through affinity diagrams.
Affinity diagram
Thematization
I identified my findings through three themes:
Finding 1 | Preboarding - chaotic planning
First-time users have difficulty of recognizing both pickup spots and the shuttle in the dark night.
Users feel not in control when planning trip home because of the normative delay and "premodern" schedule app if considering this service.
Finding 2 | Departure - unbearable darkness
Unpredictable schedule means waiting outside without knowing when the shuttle will come, causing anxiety and concerns about safety.
Finding 3 | Arrival - last-mile horror
Users use NightRide almost exclusively, which means they don’t need another public transit and they live nearby the operation zone.
Drivers drop passengers off based on their experience, instead of the closest point within the zone which might cause more anxious walking.
Needs and goals
Crafting persona to guide design
To delve into the needs and goals of users, I created two primary personas as anchor points to the design intervention.
I also noticed that the shuttle drive could also be a primary user to improve this experience, however, I was not able to interview any drivers outside their working time. I could only analyzed some possible attitudes through the interview done by other researchers.
Two primary personas
How might we amplify control and safety for students before, during, and after taking the shuttle?
Ideate
Determine user flows and features
I sketched some concepts and determined three user flows for this app.
Three user flows
I analyzed the user needs and then crafted three user flows:
Book and track ride: user can select the operating ride based on their schedule and track the ride before, during, and after the trip
Reserve ride: user can schedule a ride for later trip and be notified when the trip will start
Virtual guard: user can turn on a virtual guard to share live location with UW Police Department not only when waiting outside but walking home after being dropped off
Evaluation
Testing and iterating
Due to the time and resource constraints, I was only able to recruit 3 participants for user testing, and I conducted a remotely moderated testing with 5 main tasks:
Note example: 1 of 3 testing participants
Mid-fi iteration overview
Final design
NightRide Go App
The final design of the app is validated by user's satisfaction and positive feedback.
Flow 1 | Book and track ride
Users have more control over the ride they are taking and are more informed about schedule to avoid wait outside in the darkness.
Flow 2 | Reserve ride
Users receive reminders to get ready for the arriving shuttle and can plan their night trip home with more confidence.
Flow 3 | Virtual guard
Users are protected throughout the entire trip and this function which is beyond transportation also improves scalability by attracting users who never use NightRide services.
UI
The visual design of the app followed three principles: familiarity, inclusivity, and assuredness.
Reflection
If I have more time or resource
There are successes and failures throughout the process of this project, so for the next step, I would like to explore the following:
User testing
Navigation and ride-taking at night pose unique challenges which might not be able to be captured through a remote testing. Hence I want to test the product in the field to expose more real-world problems.
Driver-side app
This ride-booking app is essentially a platform which ought to connect passengers and drivers. If I have more time, I would like to conduct user study on the shuttle drivers and explore what UX pattern would work for this type of audience.
Dark mode and design system
I didn’t strictly follow UW school brand systems, and also didn’t have time to design a dark mode which might be preferred under the scenario. So I want to improve the visual aspect of this design for brand consistency and visual coherence to the use case.
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