Safety shield
The blue shield icon expands to display the message "sitting in the back to make every ride a safe one" when users are waiting for the driver to pick them up. I choose to display the message in this stage because during that waiting time, users are looking for car info and constantly tracking the driver's location and time of arrival. This is a time when users pay significant amount of attention to the screen, which makes it an ideal timing for education.
The shield will stop displaying the message when the driver arrives at the pick up place because at this time users are busy looking for the driver's exact location and getting in the vehicle. As users have other goals of higher priority in this stage, there's no need to display the message any longer.
Video Demo
Parallel Designs
Instead of giving users articles to read, I decided to convey the information in a digestible, and more interesting way. As the users get in the car and the trip starts, an educational card pops up on their screen, asking where they sit in the car. The title indicates that it's a security survey, so it won't feel abrupt. The card will stay on the screen for 2 minutes if the user doesn't perform any action on it. I decided not to give the user the option to close the pop up in order to stimulate response rate. This will not negatively affect the user experience as the card doesn't cover anything vital. Figure 3 shows the original interface without the card. While the card covering part of the interface, users still have access to important features like calling police, emergency contact, or customer support.
As the card will only stay on the screen for 2 minutes after the trip starts, it can be easy for users to miss the survey. They may leave the app to do other things, or they are simply not paying attention to the interface.
To solve this problem, I came up with two strategies to further stimulate response rate.
1. If the users ever leave the app, the first time they return to the app, the card will pop up again (if the user hasn't responded to it previously)
2. By analyzing the pattern of user activity, I discovered two peak in user activity throughout the trip. One is at the beginning of the trip, and another is close to the end. This is probably because the users want to see how far they are from the destination when they are about to arrive. Therefore, the card will pop again when users are 2 miles away from their destination and it stay on screen for another 2 minutes, which will capture the user's attention very effectively.
Figure 1: The card pops up as soon as the rider gets in the car (the trip starts)
Figure 2: Swipe-up view
Figure 3: The original interface
Educational Survey Cards
Persuading the passengers to sit in the back seat to abate sexual harassment
Examine the old strategy
The platform has used mandatory safety education in the form of videos and articles to explain to the riders how sitting in the back can help avoid sexual misconduct during the ride. However, this strategy was not successful and it harmed the user experience for two reasons:
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Users are usually in urgent need of a ride and don’t want to spend time reading lengthy paragraphs.
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Dangers of victim blaming. Users feel that they are blamed for being sexually harassed--it's all because they sit in the "wrong" place.
Define the problem space
It has been reported by our data analysis team that riders who sit in the front seat are more prone to L3, L4 incidents (physical and verbal sexual harassment).
There is a higher chance for physical contact to take place when riders are sitting in the front. Also, sitting in the front makes it harder for the riders to safely exit the vehicle when situation happens.
Aside from adopting safety approach such as doing driver background check and building emergency features, we believe that there’s also a need to encourage the riders to sit in the back to reduce the risks.
Design goals
The goal is to leverage design techniques to persuade the riders to sit in the back in a compelling and friendly manner. We strive to raise users' awareness without harming their user experience and deliver care, respect, and compassion to everyone who puts their trust in our platform.
Design A:
The users will be given feedback based on their response to the question "where do you sit in the car". If users suggest that they sit in the back, they will be provided with a positive stimuli, encouraging them to continue doing so in the future. If they sit in the front this time, they will see a card explaining why sitting in the back is a better option.
Design decisions:
1. We have done user research to examine the reasons why users choose to sit or not to sit in the back seat. The most frequent explanation for not sitting in the back is that users worry that it may appear disrespectful to the driver. However, from our user research with the driver, we learned that the fact is completely the opposite. Drivers actually prefer riders to sit in the back because it gives each other more personal space. I believe that it's important to deliver this message to the rider and it's effective in terms of changing their mindset.
2. Road safety is always users' primary concern and many users report that they choose the back seat because it's safer. Therefore, instead of implying relations between sexual harassment and where people sit, I decided to persuade the users by explaining how sitting in the back can reduce the risk for injury.
Figure 1: The survey asks users where they sit in the car and gives feedback accordingly
Figure 2: The users are given positive stimuli if they sit in the back, encouraging them to continue this behavior
Figure 3: The users are given digestible information explaining why it's better to sit in the back if they fail to do so this time
Design B:
I explored different designs of the feedback cards. From a psychological point of view, people have the tendency to follow what others are doing, so when users are aware that the majority of the people on the platform choose the back seat, they're likely to do so next time.
Figure 1: The survey asks users where they sit in the car and gives feedback accordingly
Figure 2: If users sit in the back, they will know that more than 90% of the people choose the same.
Figure 3: If users sit in the front, they will realize that it's not very common to do so and it's not a good habit.
A/B testing
Design the experiment
We randomly chose 5% of the users and divided them into 3 groups:
Group A: will experience design A
Group B: will experience design B
Group C: will not be presented with any back seat education
Results & Analysis
Due to Covid, the platform has required riders to take a picture of themselves to indicate that they have facial coverings on during every ride. We are able to distinguish where people sit from those pictures using AI technology.
We will look at the results of the three groups to see if more people choose to sit in the back after given the education and if so, which design is more effective.
Event tracking
Outcomes & Reflection
Outcomes
The survey card has a response rate of 72%, which is very high compared to an average response rate of 50% of the pop ups and surveys on the platform.
We have witnessed an 7% increase in back seating for group A, and an 3% increase group B.
Reflection
The outcomes suggest that the educational designs have improved people's awareness in sitting in the back while design A seems to be more successful. For design B, when front-seaters see that the majority choose to sit in the back, it doesn't affect them significantly because they feel that being different doesn't necessarily mean being wrong.