An app that helps Cornell students find and offer rides to other students.
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An app that helps Cornell students find and offer rides to other students.
Group
6 weeks
Due to topography and weather, Cornell has a decent population of "commuters" or people who drive their personal vehicle to campus. In our group comprised of both commuters and non-commuters, we noticed that a major disincentivizer for both groups to drive to campus is the low availability (and therefore high price) of on-campus parking. We also noticed that most people who commute drive only themselves, resulting in high amounts of traffic heading to campus from the student population.
We developed a high fidelity prototype for a product that makes the existing network of student drivers accessible to the rest of the Cornell community. Through a fare system, the Uniride affords those who do not drive the ability to receive a ride, and those who would otherwise drive by themselves the ability to make money for providing shared transportation.
We wanted to gain a better understanding of the demographics and perceptions of our user group. We sent out a survey to learn more about them.
Most participants walk to campus, followed by a combined majority of using either bus or personal transportation to get to campus.
While an equal amount of participants believe that the ease of commuting is either good or OK, a majority of participants believe it is either OK or bad.
Based on current transportation provisions, in suggestions provided by participants, most included keywords “car” and “bus”, with notable inclusions of “share” and “parking”.
From our data collected and research conducted, we generated 4 user personae to thread the narrative and identify the different people who could use our solution.
is a 20-year-old Junior studying Food Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences who enjoys playing soccer for club and with his friends. After taking a gap semester from college due to the pandemic, he is taking a heavier semester for the time he lost. He feels that his time is very constrained, and living around 1 mile from the area of campus he has most of his classes in, he feels that this time is tightened even more so by his walking commute to and from class. He has a car, but doesn’t want to pay or compete for on campus parking.
is a 22-year-old Senior studying Architecture in the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. He enjoys playing guitar and plays for CU Jazz. He and his friends moved to a Collegetown apartment from Risley Hall, where they lived for 3 years. To maintain convenience, Adam decided to get an on-campus parking permit and despite feeling that it is very expensive, he is adamant about being able to drive home when on-campus transportation cannot be provided.
is an 18-year-old Freshman studying Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is from Mumbai and enjoys running. After enrolling in classes and seeing that most of them were virtual, she feels slightly anxious that she has not made many connections with people in the beginning of her college experience. She is also unfamiliar with Ithaca and American culture in general, so she tends to not leave campus too often.
is a 23-year-old 1st-year master student studying Animal Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She is from Beijing but has lived in the United States for 5 years and is passionate about photography and biology. She lives in the Hasbrouck apartments on North campus and has a car that she drives to get to her classes, paying for parking using the ParkMobile system on Cornell’s campus. She is new to Cornell’s campus but is eager to learn about it since it has a rich ecological profile.
From our data collected and research conducted, we generated 4 user personae to thread the narrative and identify the different people who could use our solution.
is a 20-year-old Junior studying Food Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences who enjoys playing soccer for club and with his friends. After taking a gap semester from college due to the pandemic, he is taking a heavier semester for the time he lost. He feels that his time is very constrained, and living around 1 mile from the area of campus he has most of his classes in, he feels that this time is tightened even more so by his walking commute to and from class. He has a car, but doesn’t want to pay or compete for on campus parking.
is a 22-year-old Senior studying Architecture in the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. He enjoys playing guitar and plays for CU Jazz. He and his friends moved to a Collegetown apartment from Risley Hall, where they lived for 3 years. To maintain convenience, Adam decided to get an on-campus parking permit and despite feeling that it is very expensive, he is adamant about being able to drive home when on-campus transportation cannot be provided.
is an 18-year-old Freshman studying Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is from Mumbai and enjoys running. After enrolling in classes and seeing that most of them were virtual, she feels slightly anxious that she has not made many connections with people in the beginning of her college experience. She is also unfamiliar with Ithaca and American culture in general, so she tends to not leave campus too often.
is a 23-year-old 1st-year master student studying Animal Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She is from Beijing but has lived in the United States for 5 years and is passionate about photography and biology. She lives in the Hasbrouck apartments on North campus and has a car that she drives to get to her classes, paying for parking using the ParkMobile system on Cornell’s campus. She is new to Cornell’s campus but is eager to learn about it since it has a rich ecological profile.
Taking the personae a step further, we mapped out their journey across a typical Friday between their Home and Campus, illustrating how different student journeys could converge. These converging paths highlight the moments our solution could tap into when it comes to the student commuting experience.
To guide the direction of our product, I laid out the feedback, our takeaways based on research, and analysis of user information based on surveys and interviews. I then compiled 4 Insights to use as the foundation for the product we would create:
We developed 3 potential concept ideas to solve the problem we discovered.
We recognized that a carpooling service, would be a high-impact and feasible idea due to Ithaca infrastructure and topography as well as today’s accessible technologies like smartphones.
We developed a mobile app to facilitate our plan of providing rides by students, for students. See below for the features included in the product.
To get a better understanding of the information architecture and how it informed user interface design decisions, I created low-fidelity wireframes of each of the core service functions: the Dashboard, Ride schema, and Community page.
Low-fidelity wireframes of the app
As functions were developed, I revised the structure of the application such that the navigation did not designate 2 separate sections to just ride types. Therefore, I made 1 section called Ride to house all ride scheduling, and another section called Drive to accommodate all the needs of drivers using the service.
The user can view any Upcoming Rides they have, as well as Scheduled Rides they are a part of. If they do not have any Upcoming Rides, they can add a ride from here.
The user can view any Upcoming Rides they have, as well as Scheduled Rides they are a part of. If they do not have any Upcoming Rides, they can add a ride from here.
When the user taps Add Ride, they are given a prompt to add a ride based on 2 methods:
The Drive tab is always available, but is not accessible to all users.
If a user is not registered as a Driver, they are given a prompt providing the opportunity to register as one, since any student with a driver’s license can register as a driver.
If a user is registered as a driver, they can receive ride requests and make ride events, and navigation is provided by a built-in GPS user interface. When an On Demand trip is established, any requests are indicated at the bottom of the screen.
The user can view statuses of trips done by other students. Such statuses include Riders joining Driver rides and Drivers making Scheduled Rides.
Every indicated On Demand and Scheduled Ride can be tapped on to bring the user to the page of that ride. Ride pages include the Driver name and rating, and in the case of Scheduled Rides, the date and dropoff point are shown. Users can request to join such rides.
Viewing a Driver’s profile brings up a simple biography and set of contact information for them, as well as their Rider and Driver information.
To an extent, knowing who your users are, what their needs are, and how you can service them through your product are paramount to delivering value through your business solution.
For a business, it is important to understand what competitors in a given solution space are doing — what is their solution, and what is the problem they are trying to tap into. This can help you understand why they have done what they’ve done and help you ask questions about what you can do to differentiate.
If I continued this project, I would speak to a broader set of Cornell’s student, faculty, and staff body in order to gain a more holistic perspective of the problem space.
While UX Design was not the primary facet of this project, I took it on as my primary concern in the group. Therefore, I would’ve liked to conduct more user tests and to show what we came up with and hear their thoughts/feedback.
