Biky

A bike-share mobile app aiming for your efficient urban transportation.

Why bike share?

Nowadays, bike share has rapidly emerged as new transportation options that can increase cycling, improve urban mobility, and improve public transit usage.

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As a sustainable and eco-friendly transportation option, the shared bike helps to cut down on pollution and is viewed as a promising alternative to mass transportation in major cities.

Problem statement

To promote the use of shared bikes in major cities, it’s necessary to have a convenient mobile app. Such an app should first and foremost be able to effectively solve urban residents’ daily transportation problems.

Process

Success measurement

If this was a successful solution, at least one of the following would be clear that: 

• The Number of Downloads would increase

• The User Retention would remain the same or increase

• The Net Promoter Score (NPS) would improve 

Competitive analysis

To learn more about the existing functions of bike-share mobile apps and define the opportunity areas, I started with a competitive analysis and researched 5 well-recognized bike-share mobile apps: Mobike, Jump by Uber, Lime, Capital bike-share and Divvy.

Opportunity areas

• Bike Reservation

• Route Recommendation

• Bike On-hold

• Health Report

• Notification and Reminder

Questionnaire

Based on the findings of the competitive analysis, I then conducted a questionnaire to have a closer look at urban residents and their transportation needs.

Target users

I classified urban residents into 4 groups according to their occupation status: students, employee, the self-employed and the unemployed. Given that only 2% of the participants of the questionnaire is self-employed and 0% for the unemployed, I chose to focus on students and employees as target users.

Top expectations

​The top 3 expected features to be integrated into a bike-share app are:

• Bike Reservation

• Route Recommendation

• Bike On-hold

How might a bike share mobile app integrate Bike Reservation, On-hold Mode and Routes Recommendation into existing features to better solve daily transportation problems of students and employees?

User flow

With all the findings, I developed the user flow.

Feature 1: Bike reservation

There are 6 time slots for users to choose from and plan their ride in advance.

Feature 2: On-hold mode

Users can lock the bike temporarily for 30 minutes at any time during the ride. 30 minutes later, they are expected to come back and unlock the bike or the bike would be no longer usable to them.

Feature 3: Route recommendation

Bike share is not only for Monday-to-Friday commuting use. Users can explore the city by following routes recommended by Biky in their spare time.

Design decisions

Reflection

Use components and design systems to simplify the design process.

I spent a lot of time maintaining the consistency of all the screens. After learning about components and design systems, I realized that I could have simplified my design process using these powerful tools. 

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I would refer to design systems like IBM Design Language and Polaris at an early stage and use components to accelerate the design process in my future design.

Plan and write down the process of the project before starting off.

When I first started, my initial ideas were all about the interface design. After quickly sketching down several screens, I realized that it wouldn’t work without a thorough understanding of users and their needs. So I started all over again. By planning the process and defining the tasks, my “redesign” went smoothly. 

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I would always plan the process and write it down to keep myself on the track.