B2C Campus carpooling platform
Offer safe, affordable, flexible rides while fostering social connections among students.
Role
UX Designer & PM
Team
4 UXD & 1 UXR
Duration
3 Month Capstone
Context
In the United States, there are 19.4 million college students and 51% of them don’t have a car on campus, highlighting the strong market potential for campus carpooling.
However, students express the need for a platform that ensures safety, flexibility, affordability, and opportunities to build social connections with other students.
IMPACT
My contribution
Led user research and usability testing to uncover key pain points, then translated insights into improved request process with wireframes and prototypes.
Challenge
How might we design a campus ride-sharing app that provides safe, flexible, and affordable rides while fostering social connections?
DESIGN SOLUTIONS
> Safety Concern
Student status is verified at registration, making sure users are actual students, not random strangers.
> Flexibility and Affordability Concern
Carpool services will be only available for scheduling ahead, with affordable fares unaffected by traffic or other factors.
> Build Social Connections
Explore nearby locations with other students to establish connections and enjoy themselves in free time.
Research
We used four different research methods during the discovery phase to understand the problem and uncover gaps in the current market, aiming to deliver more practical carpooling solutions for college students.
To identify market gaps and potential opportunities.
To delve deeper into and understand the problem.
To narrow down use cases, and refine UX-related factors.
To reduce the user's learning curve and increase adability.
Findings
01
One-way and round-trip rides are necessary.
One-way rides are most common but 855 of our users find round-trips still essential.
02
Frustration often occurs when requesting the service.
Over 75% of our users worry about whether the driver will accept the request.
03
Safety is no longer a major concern for school carpooling.
Affordability and flexibility are now the primary considerations.
USABILITY TESTING & ITERATIONS
Two rounds of usability testing were conducted with 10 students to validate my designs.
Finaal designs
Feature 2: Request Scheduled Ride
Feature 3: Explore Existing Trip Requests & Join
retro
We received positive feedback from judges at UMSI Expo 2024. We also plan to pitch this idea to universities, introduce a subscription model, and generate revenue through advertising for local shops.
If we have more time, we aim to conduct another round of usability testing with a more diverse group of students to capture broader experiences and perspectives.