Design Note: “This Design Needs Love” is intended to explore and conceptualize design ideas only, not perfect them. Designs are time-scoped and only reach mid-fidelity.
Problem
There are now dozens of rideshare and transit apps. Increased diversity means increased complexity, and none of these apps truly fulfill the diverse desires and needs of their diverse user base. Here are the problems:
Rideshares apps only surface their own products only, forcing users to have many apps and fewer choices.
Mapping apps align with some rideshare services but not others, biasing results or reducing user choice.
Rideshare apps stack long lists of ride “products” without truly considering user desires and goals.
Single options for pet or accessibility rides, but not enough specialized options or help for specialized needs.
Google Maps is great for multi-step transit, but only surfaces Lyft rideshare options.
Uber and Lyft lack robust multi-step routing and can overload you with product offerings and ads.
Curb only shows taxis, and is one more transit app to keep track of.
Opportunity
What if we built a unified transit and rideshare app that combines all services from all vendors and filters them through the lens of user desire? What if we optimized user mobility from the viewpoint of user goals?
Let’s make a unified transit app that pulls all rideshare and transit options together into one interface. Then let’s take the Hipmunk approach and sort options by user-centric needs, not just by price. We want users to have more choice and more options to fit specific needs without overwhelming them.
Application
A unified transit app would provide the capabilities of any rideshare or transit app, but be streamlined for user desires. It would avoid long product option lists, advertising, delivery services, and other non-critical offerings, and only seek to efficiently transport a user to their destination based on set preferences and filters. Such filters could be:
Stress - Fewest stops and interactions
Time - Fastest
Cost - Cheapest
Access - Most accommodating of user-defined needs, such as wheelchairs or neuro-divergence
Capacity - More than four people
App Features:
Provides all possible transit options to fulfill user desires, regardless of brand.
Filters transit options based on user-centric, user-defined needs. User can select multiple filters.
Transit options only show carriers (e.g. Uber), not individual brand products (e.g. Uber Comfort), to reduce option fatigue.
Transit option details expand upon selection, showing information like a route overview, hazards, features, alerts, and more.
Map automatically refreshes route based on user selection.
Stress: Least Stressful Ride Filter
The Stress filter’s goal is to operate like Hipmunk did for flights, sorting trips by the factors that reduce burden on the user, such as fewest ride/station transfers, fewest interactions with people or systems, and simplest, most straightforward path to the end goal. There could even be options to not speak with a rideshare driver or to have music off.
Access: Most Accessible Ride Filter
The Access filter would sort transit options by their ability to support users with diverse needs. A user could set preferences within an account settings area and automatically have those preferences factored into decision making. A good example would be if a user is in a wheelchair and needs only wheelchair-accessible rides.
Transit option detail could also provide info on driver qualifications, accessible features, or specialized accessibility route info.
An info area describing what the Access filter is and how to set preferences.
An alternative transit option listing with logos added for quick identification.
Route info area displays information on the driver and ride option.
Cost: The Cheapest Ride Filter
The Cost filter would sort transit options by the lowest possible price, regardless of time or any stressful factors. Upon selection of a travel option, the map would automatically refresh to show how the selection has changed the route. In this case, the switch to mass transit has reworked the route on the map to show a new set of route steps.