Skiable

A carpool platform designed to make skiing more possible.

Background

Skiable is a carpool platform designed to make skiing more possible for anyone. By connecting skiers and snowboarders with others who are traveling to the same ski resort, the app makes it easier and more affordable to hit the slopes.

Project type:
Self-oriented
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Role:
Product designer

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Duration:
10 weeks

Tools:
Figma
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Miro

- OVERVIEW -

Prompt

People without cars can hardly get to the ski resorts from Boston

My best friend just moved to Boston from Colorado, where is a public-transit friendly city for snow lovers. The idea of this project came out when she complained how she was eager to ski, but unfortunately, she has to stay at home because she couldn't get a ride to ski resorts, even the closest ski resort is hard to get without a car. So the idea of creating a carpool platform came from there.

Current solution

What are the possible ways to go skiing if you don't have a car?

Initial question

How might we break the barrier between people with no cars and the ski resorts?

Solution

Skiable - A carpool platform to make ski more possible

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Main feature 1

Match with a carpool group

Easily find carpool groups heading to your favorite ski resorts with similar departure and return times. Meet new friends who share your passion for skiing and have similar skill levels.

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Main feature 2

Explore details of group & co-riders

View detailed profiles of co-riders before joining a carpool group. Check their gender, skill level, verification certifications, and reviews from previous trips. Feel more secure and comfortable knowing who you are traveling with.

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Main feature 3

Apply to a group & approve co-rider’s application

Stay in touch with your co-riders through the app's instant messaging feature. Confirm pickup locations and discuss departure times. Make new friends and enjoy a fun and safe skiing experience together.

My approach

Research

Questionnaire
User interview
Define user goals

Ideation

Brainstorm
Sketch
Userflow

Design

lo-fi wireframe
Color scheme
Hi-fi prototypes
Interaction design

Design

Testing w/ Figma
Evaluation & iteration

- RESEARCH -

Competitive analysis

How do people look for carpools?

There is no direct competitors in current market.I started by looking at two current major apps where people find ski carpools.To quickly verify whether this is a problem worth solving, I decided to lead the team to :

Key findings

Finding the carpool information is time-consuming. It takes a lot of time to manually filter out a lot of other messages to find some relevant carpool information.
It takes effort to find out if the carpool is still available: Even if you do find information about a carpool, you have to chat with the sender to find out if it's full or still available.
Having no information about other co-riders feels unsafe. Only can get to know the OP (original poster) info by looking at his/her profile, but know nothing about other co-riders - how many people will go together? what's their gender? etc.

Opportunities

Providing a specialized platform tailored for ski lovers for a better carpool experience. Make it easier for users to find carpools and make the information more open and transparent about co-passengers.

User survey

Understand users consideration

I surveyed 124 ski lovers between age 17-60+. The hypothesis of filling the market gap motivated me to:

set a survey to verify if users indeed need a better carpool platform.
to learn about what are the important considerations users care for carpool in the following surveys and interviews

What made me excited was that almost all people are interested in a specialized skiing carpool app. Only 5 people (among 124) confirm they will not carpool.

All the findings below are essential guidance for me me to prioritize information in later design:

User interview

Uncover user’s pain points

By knowing the result that the majority are interested in carpool, I conducted interviews to dive deeper into the situation of people's pain points and their ideal carpooling. I talked with 6 people who had carpool experience before, half of them had the experience of looking for a carpool, and the rest had the experience of giving a ride.

I quickly coded the responses from the interviews and found that what people most concerned about is the uncertainty of who will be carpooling with.

Key insights

From the research, I found what users want is be able to find suitable groups and find suitable co-riders. These findings will became the foundations of the product features.

Find suitable groups

Enables users to discover ride-sharing groups that are traveling to desired ski resorts on specific dates and times, ensuring they can easily connect with groups that align with their preferences.

Find reliable co-riders

Assists users in obtaining initial information about potential co-riders, enabling them to identify and filter out individuals who may not be compatible, ultimately helping them find a suitable carpool companion.

Redifine Problem statement

How might we help snow lovers to find suitable carpool and match with reliable co-riders?

- IDEATION -

Ideation

Translate insights to possible features

With the research findings in mind, I started brainstorming by writing down as many thoughts as possible about how to achieve the two major goals. Then I organized and grouped these ideas into categories based on their functionalities. To visually represent the ideas and their relationships, I created a diagram below to show how these features could interconnect.

By using this diagram, I effectively went through my ideas with my engineer friend and we discussed about the implementation feasibility. To simplify the brainstormed ideas into a minimum viable product (MVP) version, we decided to only focus on the essential features that are critical for the app's success. Features that are too complex or difficult to implement in the first phase, such as facial recognition, can be deferred for later development. Similarly, features that are nice to have but not strictly necessary can also be omitted to simplify the MVP.

Finalize the concept

Defining the app's goal and key features

By focusing on the most critical features and delivering a MVP, I settled on the following core functionalities:

Find ideal carpools

user can find their idea groups with a preferred ski resort, date and schedule
user can easily find their desired groups by more detail settings: budget, co-rider preference, and distance

Screening co-riders

be able to review basic information of existing members before joining the group
be able to review the basic information of users who apply to join the group
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Efficient communicate

group chat allows members to chat in real time and get to better know each other
user can discuss exact pickup/ meetup time and location in a group
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- DESIGN & EVALUATION-

Based on the pain points and user goals, I would like to showcase my design as a stories of how my persona find a ski group.

Story 1: Find a group
Story 2: Check potential co-riders' identification
Story 3: Confirm address and chat with group

Story 1

Find a group

Simon lives in downtown Boston. He is a ski lover but doesn't own a car. He is looking for a carpool group on next weekend on Skiable. He explored the groups, and find one with an ideal schedule, ski resort, and estimated expanse.

Design Decision

Alternative views

Based on the user survey, what people care most about carpool is the same schedule and which ski resort to go. Thus, I tried to consider different scenarios about how users might act to search the group. So I decided to place a toggle at the top, one prioritize the ski resort, the other prioritize the time.

Iteration 1

Transfer a long page to a wizard-like multi-step experience

During usability testing, users found it helpful to have a filter to easily locate suitable groups. However, users found the filter page to be too long and complicated, causing them to lose patience while scrolling down and filling out information.

To address this, I created a wizard-like multi-step experience that broke up the complex process into a series of steps, making each step less overwhelming and reducing pressure. Additionally, a progress bar was implemented, providing users with a sense of where they are in the process and how many steps are left while filling out information, resulting in a more positive user experience

Iteration 2

Carpool group information

During usability testing, users found it difficult to understand how many seats were available in a group and struggled with reading the information.
To address this interface, I asked myself these questions:

What is the most important information users use to find their ideal group?
HMW establish a visual hierarchy with the primary content?

Taking these into consideration, I investigated several iterations to improve clarity and hierarchy.

Story 2

Check potential co-riders identification

Before finally confirmed to join the group, Simon also wanted to make sure that all people he would be carpool with were reliable. So he looked through each potential co-riders profile and had a general idea of each person. Having made sure everyone is good, Simon decided to join the group.

Design Iteration

How to build a quick-to-read profile

To start, I have two main considerations on the profile page:

For users who're looking for joining a carpool, their goal was to display reputation and show trust.
For users who're looking for carpoolers, the goal was to get to know the person from this profile page, upon which to decide whether this is a right person to carpool with

To start, I have two main considerations on the profile page:

HMW include clues to prove I am a trustworthy person?
HMW appropriately compose user's information in one page?
HMW prioritize the profile information so that user can look at a glance and make decisions?

I self-explored the 4 options below before testing with users. During the usability test, I showed all four options to the users, and they all voted for the forth option.

Story 3

Confirm address and chat with group

Waited for a while after applying for a group, Simon received an approval notification from the group. He opened the app again, confirmed his pick up location, and chatted a bit with the group members.

Design Iteration

Where to review group applications?

In the initial design, we used two tabs on the chat list page to distinguish requests vs. chat messages. However, based on user feedback, it became apparent that this approach led to difficulties in associating applicants with their respective groups. Users found it challenging to determine which individuals were requesting to join which groups.

In response to this valuable feedback, we made enhancements to address the issue. We introduced a switch toggle within each chat, allowing users to conveniently review membership applications within each group.

- REFLECTION -

01 Keep design user-centered

I was not a skier when I did this project. All the basic understanding of skiing knowledge came from some casual chats with my friend - Carolie. After a few research to understand this activity more, I conduct user interviews at an early stage and try to feel the user's problems and needs. I am glad that I kept the process user-centered: I emphasized with users from research and interviews, from which I learned their goals and pain points. After I year of finishing this project, I became a ski beginner and got to know more about this winter activity. When I look back on this project, I felt proud what I've done. If this project became real, I would love using it.

02 Iteration is essential to progress

Iteration is am important process that helps me make my design better. My first try always looks a bit crappy, but it was a very important initial step. With the iterating process, I kept asking myself: Does this include all information we want to convey? Does the flow make sense? Do I prioritize the important content for user to easily catch? Is the interface easy enough for user to understand? Is it visually pleasant? with the answering all the questions though the process, the results get better and better.

- NEXT STEP-

I had so much fun working on Skiable and I am proud of it. However, there is never an end. There are much more to keep working on and make it better. I also thought about two features that can be important for the next step of this product.

Onboarding

Quickly get to know what this app can bring you

Given the time constraints, we were only able to focus on solutions for the creator's pain points in this project. However, in the future, we aim to develop a more comprehensive and balanced experience for both creators and brands. This would involve conducting further research into the needs and pain points of both parties, and designing solutions that address them. By taking a more holistic approach, we can create a platform that provides a more efficient, effective, and satisfying collaboration experience for all users.

Challenge

For first time users, how to introduce the main features of this product in a simple, easy and attractive way?

Solution

To help first-time users learn of the product with minimum effort, I used concise language to introduce main features. With enlarged keywords and engaging illustrations, users can quickly catch the information. The next step will be considering some toggle animations to make the process more interactive and fun.

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Nice to see you here!