Background - Problem Statement
making school van transit experience easy to track and hassle free - In November 2023, I worked with an early stage startup based out of new delhi. I worked on designing the end user experience for the product which is an app that provides subscription based van transit services for the school going kids along with Van tracking features.
End-user
The targeted end-users in this case are also the core users of the app - the working parents residing in metropolitan cities. The direction was to provide time efficient End-user experience and reduce thier concerns towards safe school transit for their children.
Project Type
Freelance Contract
1 month
Deliverables
Mobile user interface
User Research outcomes
My Role
User Research
Mobile UI design
Prototyping
User research
01
Arousing Empathy within
Before getting into questionnaire prepration for user survey, It was quite necessary for me to actually get into end-user’s shoes to really understand their needs.
In order to arouse empathy for the end-users, I chose to have an informal discussion first with the parents I knew who have kids going schools throgh traditional offline Vans. Having an informal discussion gave me a parent side perspective and helped in extracting out the pain points from the conversations I had with them.
"I don't have time to go to bus stops so i prefer this mode as it picks him up from our home and the nanny receives him when he comes. But I always have to keep ringing the driver to know if everything is fine in case of delays"
Smriti - New Delhi - Mother to Samarth (05)
"I always get worried as the van always comes late after school and the driver sometimes doesn't even pick my call"
Gayatri - Bhopal - Mother to preet(07) and kartik(03)
"Offline vans are currently the only option available here and even if there are some online service providers available, they are not better enough to shift towards"
Mansi - Pune - Mother to Harshita(05) and Harsh(08)
02
Validating the pain points
After developing a proper understanding about user needs. I prepared a user survey questionnaire and started circulating it in my family and neighbourhood whatsapp groups. This survey was done to validate the pain points I observed while doing informal discussions.
03
User research outcome
After capturing a few hundred of user responses I started grouping the responses and sorted them out in order to find out the priority-wise needs. Questionnaire survey helped in finding the user needs by validating the relevant pain points.
83%
Users said that they face problems of dealys in offline vans and drivers sometimes don’t receive their calls. This makes them worried.
72%
users use offline vans because there’s no other better option available which provides point-to-point transit.
61%
working parents agreed that they find it hard to manage between work loads and keeping check on thier child’s van status.
04
Setting the direction
After validating the pain points and finding out the user needs, i got a clear direction about the problems to tackle.
I decided to focus upon providing transparency by providing detailed tracking features and making those tracking features least time consuming. The aim was to reduce the user’s panik and save their time to a noticeable extent.
Generating user personas
Sheetal - Yoga instructor - Mother to Aman (07 yrs)
Sheetal is a yoga instructor. she is a fitness freak whom who will always find outside running and burning calories. She teaches yoga in multiple schools.
sheetal has limited free time. she wishes for more time in her day.
Alka - Business analyst - mother to Vansh (12 yrs)
Alka is a business analyst. she stays out of home most of the time while working. she has a very busy schedule. alka considers herself a tech savvy. she enjoys outings with her family and friends.
she has limited free time and wishes to have better time management skills so she can manage her work and family better.
Designing User Interface
It began on direction to provide time-efficient and better tracking features within the app. i performed a few design sprints where i did a lot of juggling between design thinking and rough wireframing before i reached the final Draft design.
low-fidelity wireframes
USER fLOW diagram
Sign-in/sign Up
Parent account
Main screen
Tracking screen
menu
Active child profile
Parent account
Switch
add
Child profile
Add Child profile
Add aadhar number
Choose school
Details fetched
Confirm
Pay to subscribe
Pick from available schools timings
Address
edit
Remove
Add new
during journey
during non-journey hours
Dashboard
Subscription
Customer support
Update information
Calendar
Trip history
Help
USER fLOW diagram
Sign-in/sign Up
Parent account
Main screen
Tracking screen
menu
Active child profile
Parent account
Switch
add
Child profile
Add Child profile
Add aadhar number
Choose school
Details fetched
Confirm
Pay to subscribe
Pick from available schools timings
Address
edit
Remove
Add new
during journey
during non-journey hours
Dashboard
Subscription
Customer support
Update information
Calendar
Trip history
Help
Logo
20.21 $
Wallet
Calendar
Trip history
Subscription
Support
Update information
Help
Home
Tracking
Profile
Settings
profile screen
STATUS
Running
EST. DURATION
30 min
DISTANCE
12.21 km
FROM
School
30 min
TO
Home
DRIVER
Hukum Singh
Covid-19 Guidelines checked
Home
Tracking
Profile
Settings
current LOCATION
New Market
02 / 12
Tracking screen
STATUS
Running
EST. DURATION
30 min
DISTANCE
12.21 km
FROM
School
30 min
TO
Home
DRIVER
Hukum Singh
Covid-19 Guidelines checked
Home
Tracking
Profile
Settings
current LOCATION
New Market
02 / 12
20.21 $
Wallet
Calendar
Trip history
Subscription
Support
Update information
Help
Home
Tracking
Profile
Settings
Ui screens
Addressing the Pain points
01
Problem
The Driver is always late and doesn’t pick my calls. I always get worried when Van gets delayed more than usual.
Solution
Van Status label added so the parents can see the live status (Running, Refueling, Repairing, Stuck in a jam, etc) of the van. There’s no need to call the driver in case of delays istead, users can just check the status label to know why the van is being delayed.
02
Ojective
To make the tracking features Time efficient.
Solution
An alternate feature to map tracking is provided where the tracking in provided in form of name of checkpoint stations the van passes throgh in it’s journey.
This feature is much more in the direction of universal adaptability. The feature is flexible enough to be adapted on small screens like smart watches and lock screen widgets, voice assistants like in cars and alexa devies.
By making the feature available on handtips, it’s much less time consuming to access it.
User scenarios - Accessibility
30 min
FROM
School
TO
Home
STATUS
Running
DISTANCE
12.21 km
EST. TIME
30 min
New Market
02 / 12
Aman’s Van has safely reached home on time!
30 min
FROM
School
TO
Home
STATUS
Running
DISTANCE
12.21 km
EST. TIME
30 min
New Market
02 / 12
Aman’s Van has safely reached home on time!
Sheetal checking her child’s van status while teaching yoga
Alka cheking her child’s van status while driving to her work
20.21 $
Wallet
Calendar
Trip history
Subscription
Support
Update information
Help
Home
Tracking
Profile
Settings
Vikrant this side!