improving the ride share experience for both riders and drivers

background

Arcade City is a mobile ride sharing app based in Austin, Texas. Their approach is to give control of the ride sharing experience to the driver and rider, and in doing so, create a community.

Most drivers had also driven for Uber and Lyft and wanted more control of their schedule and rates. The initial app showed available drivers on a map, and their contact information for a rider to request a ride. We helped build an in-depth ride request flow making it easier for riders send a request, and drivers to view and accept rides that fit their schedules.

flexibility for both riders and drivers

The biggest challenge was adding the ability for riders to easily request rides in the app, but also maintain the flexibility for drivers to set their schedules.

This involved iterating the ride request flow to add the ability for riders to send messages and ride details, all in the app. The driver also needed the ability to view or send messages, and accept ride requests.

After testing a few iterations, the final flow included the ability for riders to add a pick-up and drop-off, the number of passengers, and the type of car preferred. When searching, a rider would be able to choose a driver by looking at a map or list view of all available drivers.

Sending a request would allow the rider to send a message and include their trip details. A driver could review the request and accept in order to schedule the ride.

designing the building blocks

I created the visual design styles for the app based on the goals and research gathered by the whole team. Taking cue from the name, the visual design included dark backgrounds with bold, neon colors to create a game-like style.

In order to maintain consistency while building out the designs, I created a library for all of the reusable styles and components. This was a growing library that I added to as we iterated so that everyone on the team had access to the same styles.

final thoughts

Getting to contribute to a working design system was challenging. Components and styles were in use, so there needed to be a structured way to update that wouldn’t interfere with working designs.

A spacing system was created to maintain consistent styles in working components, and established the base typography styles. This allowed flexibility for the team to work on screen simultaneously as the library was updated.