Ride-hailing
IOS Mobile App
B2C
T3, launched in March 2019, backed by Alibaba and Tencent, is an emerging B2C ride-hailing app with 3.2+ million active users. Unlike traditional C2C ride-hailing apps, which connect drivers to riders by mobile phones, T3 utilizes its Vehicle Networking Technology with safety protection V.D.R. systems, touch-screens, and cameras aiming to provide high-quality ride share.
Safety concerns for passengers have been brought up after two riders were killed in 2018.
T3's Mission = Reliable & Safe Ride
However, through market research, users had very limited perception and awareness of T3's unique safety features. When comparing with other platforms, users barely recognize the difference between T3 and other ride-hailing apps.
“I didn't even know T3 offer this feature"; "I never used this button"
China has the world's biggest ride-sharing and ride-hailing market, with an average of more than 20 million ride bookings every day. T3 started late in the game, and they want to distinguish themselves in the industry through a series of distinct safety protection features, physically and digitally. Through fostering reliable relationships between drivers and riders, T3 aims to achieve a safe, convenient, and high-quality ride anytime and anywhere.
To find out why riders are not adopting the safety features, we collected 719 survey responses and conducted 10 interviews with both riders and drivers.
Taking a ride is a dynamic experience, from requesting on the mobile app to getting on board till the end of the trip, and feeling unsafe is not only related to the moment after dangers happened.
Synthesizing Results
WHAT USERS FEEL
Don't know what is safety;
Don't know how to increase safety;
Don't know how to react to unsafety;
To empathy with users on how they recognize and react to safety issues at all riding stages, we consolidated the interview and filed observation findings into the user journey map. Then quickly prioritized three key problems related to the low recognition and utilization rate of safety features to initiate this sprint.
We made the hypothesis on the reason why T3 offered safety feature has very low utilization and adoption rate, because:
2
Current safety protection feature is not helping user in their context
1
Users only want to take minimum effort towards safety protection without a sign of danger
3
Current in-app safety feature can't align with user's real needs and concerns
Ultimately, we realized that we couldn't completely remove safety risk through design. What users want is no matter when, they can feel safe and assured. Safety is not only about reporting to police when you are in danger, in a larger extent, it is an overall experience about sense of knowing, and sense of control.
We want to redefine and maximize the sense of security from two aspects:
OPPORTUNITY
Safe is not about the frequence of using certain safety feature, it is about make users feel safe anytime, anywhere.
How might we...
encourage users to understand the safety protection features?
How might we...
add the missing features users want?
How might we...
improve current feature to help users at right way and right time?
VISION OF NEW SAFETY FEATURE
We can’t prevent dangers, but we can better prepare for it.
I hosted a workshop with other designers and PM to brainstorm some ideas. We used the crazy 8's method from the set of "how might we" questions, which allowed us to exploring ideas but stay on the track. Then, we picked out the winning ideas from voting and fine-tuned them in a better sketch to discuss with stakeholders.
Users said they value safety very much. However, in the contextural observation, we found that users actually won't take any action if nothing triggers them. We need to take one step further, proactivly encourage users to understand the safety features that T3 is providing.
If you never learned the safety functions, you will never think of using them in a real emergency.
Emergency button in car
We combined research findings with deeper insights from the user's behavior to generate ideas. Riders actually spend longer time in the T3 app while waiting for the ride, so how can we utilize the time period to grasp their attention on safety education?
HMW use the waiting time?
T3 is currently offering new users discounts. Rewarding coupons for safety education is an opportunity. Gamified safety tasks such as asking users to understand safety feature or finish safety settings are less intimidating. We expolred several options to initiate this feature:
LESSON LEARNED
Explore > Being Notified & Disturbed
CHALLENGE
Avoid overdesign causing unnecessary anxiety
Digging into deeper user insights revealed more problematic touchpoints and elements that trigger the sense of unsafety. Current app design doesn't provide information users want to know and can't help them when facing different situations. The safety features are not responding to the users' real needs in their context. It is more like a yellow page index, which needs users to find the next step themselves.
Deeper insights revealed problematic touch points
We need to acknowledge what users want to know, and even one step further
I proposed two major changes around driver's info card and safety center button. Central to the design were these key ideas:
1. Complete driver's info to foster the connection and reliability
2. Use T3's smart system to initiate precautions and warning for riders even before they realize
GOAL
Rider can locate useful info and take action effortlessly
The first impression of the reliability comes from the ride's content design. So it is crucial to provide clear and ample information for users to coordinate their rides without consuming extra energy.
Because of different age, gender, and past experience, users have various expectations for the safety feature. We found 3 major differences from research, and through redesign, we want to provide dynamic notification for users based on the various triggers we collected from the research. Besides, after user testing, additional CTA buttons were added to assist users in emergent situations better.
HOW MIGHT WE DESIGN FOR DIFFERENCE AND MORE INCLUSIVE?
Need
Safety setting & need for the safety center feature is different
Trigger
The different situation will trigger the user's unsafe feeling
Reaction
Users might take a different approach towards the same situation
LESSON LEARNED
Safe or unsafe is not a clear cut,
and we can better assist users in between.
Unfortunately, out of three key features defined, we only developed two for beta testing.
As sense of safety is hard to measure with direct increase on business, and there are other factors are affecting the rides increase. So we developed two beta test matrix:
1. Engagement rate for the "coupon for safety task" feature
2. Collect rating in T3 Go community on information clearity and dynamic safety center
Coupon Gamification CTR is
~43%
Rating increase from old design about
~29% more
