The Commuter — case study
The population in the SF Bay Area increases every year, which significantly affects the time that people spend for a commute. A decade ago, the city’s share of “super commuters” — those with daily commute times over 90 minutes — was considerably lower. The population of super commuters in the city grew by 112.7 percent between 2005 and 2016, according to a study of U.S. Census data compiled by Apartment List. Super commuters are more likely to rely on public transportation than those with shorter commutes. An estimated 91.4 percent of non-super commuters drive to work, compared to just 69.7 percent of super commuters.
After collecting data of time and cost of commute by different kinds of transport, it becomes clear that the most convenient way is a car with a few passengers. Let’s take a look at the apps that are currently on the market. We have several, but the primary market is divided into two applications: Scoop and Waze Carpool.
I have interviewed more than 30 people who use apps for сommute every day, and the vast majority of them use Scoop. It is also worth noting that the number of passengers exceeds the number of drivers, so let’s in this case, analyze more carefully the experience of using the app by passengers.
Personas
Each person is individual, but we can highlight one criterion that unites them all during the trip planning — it’s time. Let’s take a look at how Scoop works.
In addition to selecting addresses, the user can choose a time range for the trip. So at that moment, he faces a choice: specify a smaller time range and to go at a time when it is convenient for him, or you can specify a broad range of time to be sure that he will be matched with driver for the trip home. A user risks to face a situation when the time of the trip will be uncomfortable for him, and he will have to stay longer or leave too early. This is how the app works now, drivers and passengers indicate the acceptable range of time for them, and on the basis of this data, pairs are collected.
Problem solution
Let’s take a closer look at the proposed improvements:
There are two categories of passengers — those who are important to leave at a specific time and those who are more free in time. I am sure that many passengers would love to take an extra 30 min nap than wake up earlier to catch the car. The same people are among the drivers. This is why another selector has been created to indicate the preferred time in a time interval. Users specify a time range for a ride and after sorting users by time range, users with the closest selected optimal time selector will be matched.
What about business days? Some companies practice a four day work week. Some people work part-time and some work from home for a few days. In Scoop, the user must manually select and confirm each trip. Do we change our work schedule so often that we have to specify and book each trip? To solve this problem, I created a customizable travel calendar with the function of a pause in case of vacation or sick leave.
An essential part of the app is the community. This increases the value of the app to a user. We meet new people, learn their stories and share news. At the end of each trip, the user is asked to leave a review about your commuter, and if you liked this person, you can add it to your favorites. Users who have added each other to the favorites have a great chance of matching a joint trip again. Sometimes the list can be long and the value of this list becomes less, but we always have our top favorites, right? For this purpose was created a function to select the top priority users from the list. A user can select up to 5 priority users from the full list.
Travel by car has one significant difference from traveling by public transport. Passenger spends time with a stranger in a small space and sometimes for a long time. For some people, it can be uncomfortable. For example for such people as Janet (introvert). Some of us want to enjoy favorite music in headphones or to sort out an e-mail in a laptop. Why not create an indicator of sociability and offer to choose a place in the car? It is unlikely that any of the introverts will pick the front seat. On the other hand, a sociable person will always prefer to sit in front for a more comfortable conversation.
Another problem that is solved on this screen is the addition of a second passenger, which is not available in other apps.
Next steps
The next step would be to continue testing on more users and continue working on the app’s color palette, which would be able to indicate the emphasis on the main elements, which would make scanning more convenient.
UPDATE
I am pleased to announce that Scoop team has added functionality to the app based on this case study. You can read more about the update here.
