✷ Tapride RedesignReimagining the on-demand transportation experience for university students nationwide.
Utilized across countless university safe-ride programs nationwide, Tapride is a real time hailing and dispatching mobile app designed to deliver safe rides with just a tap. At UC San Diego, Tapride is used by students for transportation across campus and around surrounding areas during the late hours.
The updated design works to mitigate common usability errors and streamline the ride-hailing experience, so that ordering rides can be easy and seamless.
Role: UX Designer, ResearcherTools: FigmaProblem Space
The lack of information displayed, and amount of errors students encounter when using the app make getting a ride rather difficult and inconvenient. Delivering safe rides become nearly impossible when students oppose using the app altogether!
How might we simplify the ride-ordering process for students?
User Research
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A total of 13 observational user interviews were conducted with current students attending UC San Diego who were asked to perform tasks related to the main user flow, ordering a ride. Students ranged from first time users (9), frequent users (2), and discontinued users (2).
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Part of my process included competitive analysis where I looked at popular ride-hailing apps, such as Lyft and Uber, to understand similarities and differences, and identify similar design patterns and interactions. This was to ensure the reimagined Tapride experience felt familiar to other ride-hailing experiences and didn’t reinvent the wheel.
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I also read reviews on the Tapride app to understand user sentiment and user pain points further.
Low Fidelity Mocks & Exploration
When creating low fidelity mock-ups during the initial phases, the goal was to establish core pieces of the user flow and not worry about visual/UI design just yet. Later on, I would focus more on the visual/UI by exploring different concepts.
The Solution
An entirely reimagined user flow, complete with modernized visual language, designed to mitigate usability errors so ordering rides can be hassle-free. Let’s take a look!
Destination driven entry point.
Our research showed that users would often accidentally enter their drop-off location in the “pickup” field, and vice versa, which led to many errors and created user confusion.
To mitigate this, we simplified the entry point of ordering a ride by showing a singular action, entering your destination.
Reducing cognitive load with intuitive suggestions.
Users can easily choose their drop off destination through the quick search component; choices have been modified from earlier iterations and paired with distinct icons to show options that are the most relevant to the users such as “Home” or recent.
Quick Search
Additionally, with geo-location, nearby stops are readily available for users to select through whether that be through a list, or the newly redesigned map pins.
Pickup Suggestions
Eliminating ambiguity with the new review screen.
40% of users were confused and wary of the “Confirm ride” button in the ride review screen; the copy was misleading to users as it wasn’t clear if clicking the button will submit their ride right away.
The new comprehensive review screen provides users with all the necessary details to get their ride on the way.
Content Strategy
I opted to use a more conversational tone through the user flow to help guide users through the ride-ordering process and to implement rules. By integrating this tone throughout the design, we are creating a more seamless experience, one that is friendly and gives users more control.
Reflection
Originally started as a school project, I took the opportunity to push my product thinking and visual skills with a design sprint. During this sprint, I continued my group’s effort of simplifying the user flow enabling more efficient ride experiences. From the visual standpoint, I prioritized modernizing the app through the colors and elements already in place, while finding ways to seamlessly integrate “ride rules” to the overall design.