capstone
Case Study
MODE: Rideshare
User Interviews
I knew I needed to hear from all three groups if I wanted to design to address root causes and create positive circumstances before things went downhill. At the heart of the inquiry is a question about micro-social consensus. In other words, the solution isn’t a faster car or nicer colors for the UI. The experiences we want result from social dynamics and how people establish agreement in small moments. Research interviews covered riders, drivers and corporate employees. I was particularly interested in understanding more details of the relations between riders and drivers, and how the corporate employee engaged with these dynamics.
Selected Questions from the Interviews
Riders:
What’s your strategy if others are too talkative?
What creates that feeling of awareness? What do you mean that you “don’t want to have to monitor”?
How does that feeling you mentioned factor in here: the feeling of questioning safety, especially when you’re in an enclosed space with another person in control?
Other than price and response time, what makes a difference for you?
How often do you feel you can’t effectively communicate the need for a change?
How often do you use methods to upgrade your ride-share experience?
Drivers:
How do you approach understanding the feelings of your passenger?
How do you strategize and manage the financial variables of your experience?
How do you create safety and comfort for everyone in the vehicle, yourself included?
Why does it feel weird to present yourself as human?
Corporate employees:
You mentioned a gap between the noise of complaints and understanding why people are complaining. What attempts do you make to meet that gap: knowing what drivers or riders are really asking for?
How does the design of the app create signal or reduce noise?
Which steps in the user experience provide for the most and least actionable responses?
Which situations experienced by drivers are the most difficult to align with company goals?
Which situations experienced by riders are the most difficult to align with company goals?
What’s your worst experience from a data perspective?
What I learned
The corporate employee, a former data project manager at a major rideshare corporation, explained that effectively clarifying the problem dynamic is “...hard to do: I want to educate drivers in how to present a problem, not a solution. I want them to be able to say not just what the problem is, but why. Until they do it’s white noise.”
Drivers offered a broad range of perspectives.
From
“As a driver I’m just an extension of the app. We’re just humans to do data”
to
“I met directors and producers of top fashion and tech companies, those encounters were instrumental in my current career progress”
Every rider prioritized safety and comfort, almost always discussing both in context of other concerns and values. One rider described the multiple ways that gender works in rideshares:
“It cuts both ways as a female. Sometimes you sort of get hit on and you’re like ugh. So you try to be less responsive; work “my boyfriend” into the conversation. That’s successful enough: in normal life things don’t change, most people get the hint. And sometimes they are kind of protective. They wait until you get inside; they don’t drop you off in dangerous places; they drive a little extra distance or have the experience to take you to a drop-off point that’s just easier for you. ...At night I’ll navigate them through my apartment complex, but usually I just don’t want to be in someone else’s car longer than I have to.”
Another described the way feelings of safety intersect with broader questions of geographical comfort, and the way that a feeling of security really comes down to a feeling of autonomy:
“I feel like once I’m in the car I’m a prisoner of the driver. Sometimes I feel like the driver might listen to me, depending on their demeanor. They might not understand me, because of language difficulties; it happens in the US, and even more so overseas. [...] Time is so valuable. I want to use it the way I want to use it.”
Affinity & Empathy maps