GIG CAR SHARE
My team tested and designed research informed user flows for the pickup time period with a new extension feature, delivered in high fidelity UI deliverables for Gig Car Share, a carsharing service operating in the Bay Area, Sacramento, and Seattle. I led the prototyping stage by organizing and managing the team and the product.
Disciplines
UI/UX Design, Product Design
Teammates
Jasmine Chen, Jirachaya Kiriruangchai, Cici Wei, Etheline Nguyen
Timeline
09/21 - 12/21
Disciplines
UI/UX Design, Product Design
Teammates
Jasmine Chen, Jirachaya Kiriruangchai, Cici Wei, Etheline Nguyen
Timeline
09/21 - 12/21
Problem
Though Gig has many member support resources, Gig members often call member support for non-urgent issues, backlogging urgent issues. This proves to be unsafe and inefficient for both users and Gig. Through Berkeley Innovation, I had the opportunity to work with Emily Rosenfield, a Product Manager at Gig, to explore user problems and potential solutions. We followed this problem statement through our process:
“How might we create a seamless and intuitive Gig vehicle experience to help Gig Members during their trip so they don’t need to look at their phone for the FAQ or call support for general questions to reduce member frustration and call volume for non-urgent issues?”
Solution Preview
After many iterations of diverging and converging through our research, synthesis, ideating, and prototyping methods, we finally developed the pickup time extension solution:
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The Process
1.0 Exploration
Before anything, we needed to understand: why were users calling member support for nonurgent issues? To do this, we launched into comprehensive research that included:
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1.1 Key Insight
People value timeliness and quick responses as they are being charged per minute.
1.2 Key Insight
Currently, users have no choice but to call customer support because they don’t have the resources to resolve the problem independently.
1.3 Key Insight
Users seek a more informative and visual app. There lacks consistency and reliability in the Gig app.
2.0 Humanizing our data
In order to personify our data and focus on a human centered approach, we created a persona of a Gig user, Jennifer, who would later interact with our solution. We also developed a journey map to further showcase the pain points of the current Gig user flow.
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3.0 A change of perspective
After getting a better understanding of our data I had a shift in perspective:
I drew inspiration one of Randy Pausch’s quotes: “Treat the disease, not the symptom”. The whole team was onboard so from there, we continued designing with this new perspective.
What if, instead of redirecting non-urgent calls, we simply addressed the issues that caused users to call?
I drew inspiration one of Randy Pausch’s quotes: “Treat the disease, not the symptom”. The whole team was onboard so from there, we continued designing with this new perspective.
4.0 Narrowing the project scope
To narrow our wide problem scope down, we looked at two different stages of the Gig user journey that had issues based on our research. After going back and forth with our research, we chose the issue of finding and reserving a car because it
is research supported
From our surveys, we found that users value timeliness. Furthermore, many interviewees found it “difficult to find cars nearby”, prolonging the walk. Currently, the only way for users to extend pick up time is to call member support. Similarly, according to data given by Gig, this issue falls under Gig’s top call problem. Alleviating this problem will in turn reduce member support call volume.
aligns with Gig’s business model
Gig wants to motivate users to get into cars instead of giving up and using other modes of transportation. Furthermore, this issue is one Gig is interested in and explored lightly.
Rapid ideation for both stages
5.0 Potential solutions
Once our problem was chosen, we conducted rapid prototyping. We settled upon three main solutions:
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We selected auto-extension (idea 3) as it was the simplest and least stressful for users, seamlessly embedding itself into the current Gig pick up time flow.
Click through to see all solutions
We selected auto-extension (idea 3) as it was the simplest and least stressful for users, seamlessly embedding itself into the current Gig pick up time flow.
6.0 Fleshing it out
In order to visualize our solution, we created a user flow map that showcased every possible user interaction with our proudct.
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From there, we launched into a cycle of designing and user testing our solution.
courtsey of Jasmine
From there, we launched into a cycle of designing and user testing our solution.
Final Solution
When initially booking the car, the user is given the option to opt into auto extend along with additional information about the feature itself.
Once opting in/out, a popup with additional information about their choice will confirm their status.
During the free 30 minute pickup window, users will encounter a countdown that will serve as a reminder of how much time they have left along with the option to opt into or out of auto extend. After the free 30 minutes, the user can no longer opt out (they would simply cancel the reservation) and they will see the extension period time and estimated cost.
If a user previously decided to opt out, they will recieve a gentle reminder and the option to opt in when there are only 5 minutes and 1 minute left to their reservation.
Once the user has reached their Gig, they will be reminded to start their car within 2 minutes and be shown a countdown of how much time they have left. Once the ride begins, they are shown how much time they’ve spent during the ride along with an estimated cost.
Once the user is ready to end their ride, they will be met with a confirmation along wiith an estimated charge for their reservation along with estimated charge for pick up time extension if applicable.
If a reservation expires or a user decides to cancel their reservation after opting in, they will be informed that they can no longer book the car for 2 hours and their extension cost if applicable.