EnRoute: Carpooling/Rideshare Application
Summary: EnRoute allows drivers and passengers to create routes, and coordinate during the route by utilizing the GPS location of the car and mobile devices. Real-time location updates are sent during the route to increase efficiency and safety. To keep the driver's focus on the road, our team took care to reduce the visual demand of the interface and minimize the task-interruption penalty in our design.
Our Process
USER INTERVIEWS AND OBSERVATIONS
The goal of our project was to design an application that integrates social computing with the touchscreen dashboard in the Ford Flex. Inspired by frustrations encountered in my own experiences with rideshares, I interviewed two drivers who have participated in carpools and rideshares and observed a rideshare in progress. Initially, I tried videotaping my interviewees to see if I could capture natural interactions in this environment. When I realized it made the drivers too self-conscious and they were not behaving naturally, I switched to observation and taking notes.
Some interesting findings:
- Drivers and riders coordinate rides through multiple channels (e-mail, online chat, phone, text messages, and through a second party). As the driver and passengers juggle multiple technologies and systems to coordinate the rideshare, miscommunication is likely to occur.
- Timing between the driver and passenger is a huge pain point.
- Drivers often incorrectly estimate their time of arrival, which leads to unnecessary wait times for both the driver and passenger.
- Coordinating pickup locations in which multiple parties meet to be picked up by the driver can be inefficient.
- Coordinating and communicating with riders can be distracting for the driver and may jeopardize the safety of both parties
- Contributing towards gas may be difficult to estimate and may create awkward social moments. Also people expressed preference to wait until they owed a significant amount before paying ("I'm not going to ask for $1.50").
USER SCENARIOS AND STORYBOARDS
In preparation for our brainstorming session, I sketched a storyboard of communication and coordination between drivers and riders during a pickup route and created rough wireframes of possible screens. Walking through my storyboard and modifying it as a team helped our team stay on the same page and keep our design ideas grounded in a seamless user experience.
Once we agreed upon the type of experience we wanted to create for our drivers and riders, our team continued to explore different scenarios and sketch ideas for features, interface design, and the system architecture on the whiteboard. Based on our user research, project timeline, and technical feasibility, we settled on the following features
- Calculates the most efficient route for the driver
- Creates, saves, and modifies routes based on personal preferences or a change in plans
- Sends real-time GPS location updates and calculates the estimated time of arrival based on location and speed for both the driver and rider
- Increases driver and passenger safety with pre-set messages and text-to-voice capability
- Imports information from FB and offers photo-sharing to help coordinate pick ups
- Calculates recommended contributions at the end of a trip
WIREFRAMES
After these discussions, I updated my storyboard and wireframes based on the whiteboard sketches of the mobile and touchscreen experience. Below is a sample of my rough wireframes and flows I created for the mobile experience:
LO-FI PROTOTYPES AND USER TESTING
My teammates created lo-fi interactive prototypes for our user testing. My teammate and I designed the usability study and conducted the sessions of the lo-fi dashboard prototype with 5 drivers. Our testing was valuable in uncovering how well our UI supported the two automotive principles of 1.) reducing visual demand whenever possible and 2.) minimizing the task-interruption penalty. Based on our findings, our next design iteration will focus on simplifying the interaction flow for modifying a route and sending/receiving messages.
HI-FI PROTOTYPES
Based on the results of our usability testing, Working closely with the developer on the project, I revised the wireframes and created mockups for the high fidelity mobile and touch screen prototypes.
Recognition
SI Exposition 2011: Honorable Mention
I designed the poster in our submission for the SI Exposition 2011, an annual networking and exhibition event in which masters students showcase their projects to potential employers, prospective students, and the UM community. Our project earned an "Honorable Mention" in the Best Overall Presentation category.
