Uber: Redesign
Overview
Our team focused on redesigning the request feature, we intended to make ride-sharing more accessible to persons with disabilities because we wanted to deconstruct the intimidation factor for audiences that aren’t conventionally the target audience such as the elderly.
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My role as the UX Designer was creating wireframes, ux flows, and high fidelity screens to prototype the new accessible experience. I was personally involved end-to-end from the design iterations to final proposal.
Role
UX Designer
Timeline
8 weeks
Purpose
Accessibility
Problem Space
We identified through primary interviews that people with disabilities need unobtrusive end-to-end support in order to feel comfortable participating in ride-sharing.
Through our redesign we want to deconstruct technological intimidation and be inclusive to allow others outside the conventional audience to participate.
Research Findings
Pain Points
We chose to interview locally at the VA San Diego Healthcare Center to focus on designing accessibility for the elderly.
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Our research indicated that many disabled persons face transportation related issues and ridesharing was an untapped space for many of them because of technological restrictions.
Our goal of our primary interviews was to uncover need for ride-sharing which is indicated by 5/6 interviewees requiring assistance to get around.
From our research we sought to create a design solution to address the main pain points and address how Uber should make disabled persons feel capable and not unconsciously remind them of their disabilities.
Testimonial: Edda, 70yr, VA Center
“I disabled any form of in-app purchases on my phone because I’m scared that someone might steal my information. I doubt that uber drivers have any formal training with handling older folks.”
UX Flows
From our research findings we created two flows, one for the rider and one for the driver.
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In terms of discovering accessible rides on Uber we noticed that the discoverability of accessible ride is currently hidden behind 4 clicks + a swipe up.
To address our problem space, we wanted to relocate the entry point to the beginning of the flow rather than the end to create an experience that is unobtrusive and defines a preset path for the user rather than overwhelm our users with too many options.
Rider Flow
Driver Flow
We also explored the Uber Driver’s redesigned flow, but we decided to narrow the scope because the feasibility of executing two redesigns within our time constraint wasn’t realistic. The flow explored implementing an onboarding process that vetted accessible drivers for Uber.
Ideation Phase
After defining a UX Flow for Uber Riders we wanted to dedicate time to exploring different wireframe flow so we wouldn’t overcommit into a solution that was lackluster. We ended up creating an A/B version to compare and see which design was more indicative in creating an accessible experience.
A Version: Traditional Uber Flow swapped with a Toggle State
B Version: Simplified UI to reduce too many options; ref: Hick’s Law
Wireframes
In making a variety of sketches we created an A/B version for the flows which was helpful in defining a use case for the elderly. The A flow allowed the user to freely enter their location into the preset while the B flow restricted the user by showing them common places.
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Our goal of the wireframes was to create a flow that seemed aligned with Uber's, moving forward we decided to create paper prototype flow that started from the onboarding section because the elderly usually could not get over the set up phase.
Paper Prototypes
Based on our findings from user testing, our team believes that we have to do another iteration of paper prototyping. Users had trouble finding core pieces of information due to lack of experience with UI elements and visual accessibility needs, so we would like to redesign layouts to improve discoverability.
After being informed from our paper prototyped user testing we focused the redesign on in a carousel slider to bring more awareness to the safety features but also the option to select these types of rides.
High Fidelity Prototype
We went through two version of the high fidelity prototype, this first version was our initial ideas then our 2nd was pivoting after receiving more data from user testing and critique.
Our rationale behind a second iteration was creating a more cohesive prototype aligned with Uber's brand. This first high prototype was an exploratory phase in seeing what a potential end solution could be without regards to constraints.
Final Design
What I learned
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How to design under a time constraint with having to make design pivots.
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Having intentional design is important to being able to justify new ideas to team members.
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Designing within constraints to create a realistic end product and not some radical design.
Next Steps
In the future we would like to address edge cases that surround our redesign because we concede the point that while our idea may be tackling accessibility for Uber, we have to look at the app as a whole rather then try to view our redesign as something mutually exclusive.
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We understand that in a redesign or extension of a feature that it should be seen through the lens of apart of the system rather than something completely new which we have tried our best to accomplish.
