rainstick: raincoat
For this project, we first developed a vision by researching through our eyes. Previously, I had been in the library and came across a series of books about felting. I loved the way I could morph the fibers together to create a large patch of fabric or to pile them into floral shapes. After learning about his technique, I decided to visit the Botanical Garden in Brooklyn to look at flowers. However, because it was still cold, there weren’t any to look at. Instead, got really inspired by the Bonsai trees I saw, I loved the way the contours would wind in a whimsical way. I decided to take the winding nature of the bonsai trees and mimic it in the fibers of the wool.
For this project, we first developed a vision by researching through our eyes. Previously, I had been in the library and came across a series of books about felting. I loved the way I could morph the fibers together to create a large patch of fabric or to pile them into floral shapes. After learning about his technique, I decided to visit the Botanical Garden in Brooklyn to look at flowers. However, because it was still cold, there weren’t any to look at. Instead, got really inspired by the Bonsai trees I saw, I loved the way the contours would wind in a whimsical way. I decided to take the winding nature of the bonsai trees and mimic it in the fibers of the wool.
For this project, we first developed a vision by researching through our eyes. Previously, I had been in the library and came across a series of books about felting. I loved the way I could morph the fibers together to create a large patch of fabric or to pile them into floral shapes. After learning about his technique, I decided to visit the Botanical Garden in Brooklyn to look at flowers. However, because it was still cold, there weren’t any to look at. Instead, got really inspired by the Bonsai trees I saw, I loved the way the contours would wind in a whimsical way. I decided to take the winding nature of the bonsai trees and mimic it in the fibers of the wool.
Carnect
a carpool coordinating platform
Introduction
Overview
This concept is a carpool coordinating platform with a catered function to build a network of parents within a private group to promote organic methods of connecting with the community.
My role
UX Designer of Design Concept
Duration
15 weeks Feb 2024 - April 2024
Tools
Figma, Jamboard, Procreate
Problem to be solved: Design an app and a responsive website that helps parents and students find bus routes and stop information. The app should also let parents and students search for or create their own carpooling groups.
Discover
After establishing my research goals and interview questions, I was able to conduct user interview to understand my target users' experience when needing to coordinate carpools.
Goals:
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I want to understand common challenges that users face while trying to arrange carpools for themselves/ their kids or siblings.
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I want to identify frustrations users experience while trying to identify possible modes of transportation for themselves/ for their kids.
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I want to understand the processes and emotions that users experience trying to manage a busy schedule and finding a safe mode of transportation for their kid back home.
Interview Questions
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Can you describe your current schedule and how you balance your responsibilities with making sure your kid is home safe after school activities?
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How often do you need to rely on carpools? When you do, what is your motivation for doing so?
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What challenges do you face in finding a carpool? How does this make you feel?
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Is there any way in which you feel these challenges could be resolved?
Having these research goals and questions in mind, I conducted user interviews to gain a better understanding of how the needs, challenges, or concerns of each user could be resolved. After doing so, I was able to define a user group and persona, defining my user's needs, goals and points of frustration.
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Define
User Group
Busy working adults trying to balance social lives, personal and work responsibilities who need help from other busy working adults for pickups and dropoffs for their kids or younger siblings.
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Tend to be in careers that do not have consistent schedules
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Would use an app to provide carpools to kids “on their way home”
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Would use app to schedule carpools with a parent that they have prescreened in the event of a schedule conflict
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Immigrated from another country with an english language barrier
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Not very involved with activity social circle due to language barrier or busy schedule, so are not comfortable reaching out for favors
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Are more comfortable with communicating with people they are familiar with
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Would like an app that does not demand advanced english-language experience
Goals
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To help out with carpools whenever possible to return the favor
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To maintain a healthy work- life balance
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To minimize the amount of back and forth necessary in coordinating carpools to focus on their hobbies and personal/work life instead.
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To find ways of organically getting involved with the school community
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Neelam
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Frustrations
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“Having to communicate on the phone or text with other parents is difficult because of my language barrier. I feel less encouraged to reach out because I am self conscious and feel awkward being the one initiating.”
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“It’s difficult to connect and get to know parents because I am not super involved with the team”
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“I have to text other parents to ask around who will be available and it becomes repetitive and unproductive when the people I am taking time to reach out to are not available.”
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“Sometimes, my daughter forgets to text that she made it home safe and that leaves me anxious.
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“I would prefer to carpool with someone who is in my area so that both sides are not going too much out of the way”
Age:
Education:
Current City:
Hometown:
Family:
Occupation:
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43
Bachelor Degree
Boston, Massachusetts
Nairobi, Kenya
Single & teenage daughter
Nurse
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Neelam is a nurse who shares custody of her daughter with ex-partner. On some mornings, she enjoys rock climbing. Her schedule is not consistent week to week making it difficult to coordinate with her daughter who needs a ride to soccer practice during the week. Neelam is originally from Nairobi, Kenya and has difficulty opening up to people they don’t know. She wants to be able to help other parents when help is needed and to have access to a network of parents who feel the same.
"I would love to find an ounce of consistency in my inconsistent schedule"
User Persona
After defining user groups and understanding Neelam's goals and frustrations in the user persona, I was able to define her pain points as the following:
Pain Points
Efficiency
Communicating via text to parents individually is not efficient with the amount of back and forth
Accessibility
Relying solely on text and phone calls are not fit for individuals with language barriers
Social Anxiety
Initiating carpools is overwhelming to users outside social circles
Assurance
Spontaneous carpooling does not allow for prescreening and peace of mind that child is home safe.
Time Management
Organizing time for personal interests
User Story
As a nurse with an inconsistent schedule and has shared custody of a teenage daughter, I want to coordinate and prescreen carpools in advance using a database of involved parents, so that I can have peace of mind that my daughter is brought home safe by a trusted adult.
Journey Map
Problem Statement
Neelam is a nurse who immigrated from Kenya with an inconsistent schedule and shared custody of her teenage daughter who needs a website to coordinate and prescreen carpools for her daughter in advance because she needs a more straightforward way and organic way to contact other team parents and to have peace of mind that her daughter is brought home by a trusted adult.
Competitive Analysis
I followed up with market research and a competitive audit report to compare the comprehensibility and effectiveness of each competitor's app.
Competitive Audit Goals: comparing the comprehensibility, organization and effectiveness of each competitor's app as someone who isn't fluent in English.
Group Carpooling
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Strengths
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Waitlist for drivers
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Add yourself to a car
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Add yourself as a driver
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Indicate depart time, return time
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Indicate number of seats
Weaknesses
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Only for one carpool event
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Not good UI
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Needs user to make extra click to see more details
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Needs user to drag in order make actions (not intuitive)
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No profile
Group Carpools is a browser that is the next step up from coordinating via spreadsheets that is marketed towards people in companies going to conferences and events, social gatherings and protests who have trouble coordinating carpools via spreadsheets. It has the basic carpool organizing features that give users the option to add a carpool, join or to join a waitlist. You can input information like location, time of pick up and it show how many people are in a car. However, it is not intuitive that you need to drag yourself into a car from the waitlist. Important info is not immediately available and it only offers a place to organize carpools one event at a time, with no customizable login profile.
Go Kids
Strengths
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Great company message
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Profile to add kids,
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Create a carpool group indicate location and it shows up on schedule.
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Add your kid, or remove from event
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Layout available list, week, month view
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Color code which events still need rides
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Filter to see which events on schedule involve (drivers, kids, carpool groups/events)
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An organized page for the carpools you are responsible for
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Map available for locations
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Indication that kid is home
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Weaknesses
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No event color codes
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Can’t specify what days you are not available
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Only one carpool per event (not multiple)
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Profile doesn’t have space to write bio for pre screening purposes
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Nowhere to indicate number of seats
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Go Kid markets itself to parents with younger kids affected by school bus shortage. The app is modern and minimalist and has an easy layout to follow with onboarding instructions. The site relays a feeling of safety and encourages sustainability. They promote carpooling to save money, the planet, and to reduce traffic. The site features your own customizable profile, the ability to create carpool groups, join and request carpools. However, only one carpool can be made per event, only you can only volunteer to be a driver and there isn't a way to indicate your schedule ahead of time.
Carpool Kids
Weaknesses​
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Doesn’t indicate how many open seats available
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Only one carpool car per group
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Strengths
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Great company message
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Profile to add number of seats and kids
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Can invite friends to carpool group
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Indicates # of kids in a carpool already
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Assign yourself or someone else as driver
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Can indicate dates that you are unable to drive - will not appear as a possible driver
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Map available for location addresses
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Events are color coded
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Carpool Kids markets itself as an app that can help connect stay at home parents who are already driving their kids to activities to parents who might have a consistent work conflict. It is a carpool organization app that allows you to make different carpool groups and different events within each carpool group. Everyone has access to change the assigned driver and you can add and remove your own kid when necessary. There is a carpool group page where the involved parents and kids are listed. You can specify what days you cannot provide carpools, but it is by days of the week and not specific dates. The overall UI isn't the best and you can only create on carpool car per event, but you can still accomplish what is necessary.
Gaps in the Market
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Only one carpool car per event
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Doesn’t indicate how many spots are left in a car
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Some do not allow to indicate dates/days of the week you cannot drive
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Not all have different layout views of schedule
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Not all color code different groups and events
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Not all have a waitlist
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Some have profiles, not all have profiles with bios
Opportunities for Carnect:
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Offer a closed invite only group
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Multiple cars can be involved in a given event
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Indicator for how many spots are left
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Specify dates of availabilities for rides
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Layout list, week, month
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Color code events
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A list of who needs rides, who can give rides, waitlist
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Profile with bios for prescreening
My findings revealed that there was a gap in the market for a carpool coordinating platform that functions as a network of parents within a private group.
Key opportunities for improvement:
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To create multiple carpools for a given event
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Specify dates available to provide rides
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To have a designated space indicating who has joined a carpool, who can give rides and who is still looking for a ride.
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Journey Map: Interacting with Product
Develop
Goal Statement
Our Carpool Coordinating website will let users create large carpool groups with the parents of like organizations which will affect how immigrant parents with inconsistent schedules connect with other parents they do not often interact with by giving them a space to organically connect with other parents about carpooling.
We will measure effectiveness by analyzing the number of carpool rides completed.
Site Map
User Flow
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After going in depth with each of the user flows, I was able to define the necessary components for the essential screens. I began sketching out each page prioritizing laying out components in groups that will allow for a smooth and efficient user experience.
Using my previous sketches as a roadmap, my research to inform my design decisions and my eye for composition to make any additional adjustments, I built out the following digital wireframes using Figma.
Sketches & Wireframes
Prototype
To make my digital wireframes testable for feedback during usability testing, I developed the following low-fidelity prototype:
Usability Testing
I prepared a research plan to test my designs on five participants and used an unmoderated remote usability test method to gather feedback, data and observations.
With these new findings, I put together an affinity map to determine which errors to prioritize in my next design iteration.
Affinity Map
Insights
Visual Cues
Users need a visual cues, or notification alert to indicate action is necessary
Simplification
Users would benefit from renaming buttons to properly reflect their function as well as a consolidation of certain features to limit confusion.
Design
CTA icons with similar purposes will be more intuitive when coupled with consistent layout and design.
Consistency
Having consistent and multiple hotspots for buttons with similar purposes allows for more effective user journey.
Deliver
Iterations based on Insights
Visual Cues
Users need a visual indication to indicate action is necessary.
BEFORE: It was not intuitive to click on an event to access a list of available drivers without being prompted.
AFTER: I added a notification badge to the conflicts tab and a "Request Ride" call to action to prompt the user to proceed towards requesting a carpool ride.
Simplification
Users would benefit from renaming buttons to properly reflect their function as well as a consolidation of certain features to limit confusion.
BEFORE: Users were unable to understand or differentiate the purpose of certain features like group members, available drivers and network.
AFTER: I consolidated group members and network under carpool network to encompass user's list of contacts for all participating groups and individual groups to create a distinction between the function of general carpool network and available drivers tabs.
Design
CTA buttons with similar purposes will be more intuitive when coupled with consistent layouts and design.
BEFORE: Hide and reveal option not present so users are overloaded with unnecessary fields. And lack of design differentiation between action button design and status bar design caused confusion when status bar was not clickable.
AFTER: Consistent hide and reveal feature is available where applicable to provide improved information architecture. And buttons are characterized with 15 pt rounded corners, while status bars are characterized with 5 pt rounded corners.
Consistency
Having consistent and multiple hotspots for buttons with similar purposes allows for more effective user journey.
BEFORE: Users weren't able to effectively select desired contacts outside the network or within the network with current hotspots.
AFTER: Added multiple hotspots to select contacts including tick box, profile picture and name and kept it consistent with adding new contact hotspots.
Final Mockups
Design System
High Fidelity Prototype
Reflection
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After learning the importance of laying down a foundation of research from my previous case study, I was sure to establish clear research goals from the get go.
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Competitive audits are especially helpful in finding how the gaps in the market could become opportunities to solve my users pain points.
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I learned the importance of prioritization and found it easier to put it in practice.
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Establishing visual hierarchy and uniformity with buttons and icons was beneficial for me to stay organized as I tackled many solutions and was also beneficial to the user's experience.