Rider
Platform: Android
Release date: February, 2019
Market size: 20 million (most of Uzbekistan's population, ages 20-55)
Timeline: ~2 weeks
Overview
🚕 Background
In Uzbekistan, many people still use taxis to get around. Most taxis are independent - mostly men driving their own cars, working with riders in person to settle prices for drives.
Oftentimes, taxis congregate in common areas, and drivers travel to the taxis for rides; not the other way around (however, both ways do exist). A widespread Uber-like system doesn't exist, transactions are completed in cash, and scheduling is done in person.
📱 About the App
Rider allows people in Uzbekistan to find and schedule taxis through their phone. Users can settle prices & departure time before arriving to the taxi!
Note: For now, users still have to travel to the taxi for departure. However, they no longer have to do any of the set-up to plan the drive in person.
🤔 Problem + Solution
Problem: Because planning is done in person, getting a taxi in Uzbekistan can be inconvenient and hard to plan. You have to visit the drivers themselves to get rides, which requires travel, oftentimes far from wherever you are.
Moreover, if drivers are stuck in one location, they have to rely on riders coming to the area for a taxi. It may be difficult to find people who need a taxi at times.
Solution: Provide people in Uzbekistan with a way to find drivers and schedule rides from their phone, anywhere. Also, allow drivers to find riders to accept trips from!
📋 What I Worked On
A friend of mine, who is from Uzbekistan himself, developed the product concept & built the app. I was not very involved in the UX and UI of the project due to time constraints during the semester, so I was able to design:
→ Logo
→ App icon
→ Graphic for the loading page
✍️ Design Constraints
I was provided an example logo that was being used as a temporary placeholder in-app, and was told to keep things similar.
On top of that, a basic color palette existed within the app, so I made sure to use colors within that collection.
📒 Research
"Okay...I know nothing about Uzbekistan." - Me, after first hearing about the project
I grew up in a western culture, and this country is far away to the east - so, I wanted to be sure to remain culturally sensitive in terms of design even though I didn't know much about Uzbekistan.
I googled information about Uzbekistan, about cars, about women in their society, and talked with my friend to determine what to depict in my designs.
However, after some research, I learned that exuberant levels of happiness may not be as well-respected or appropriate as a more serious tone.
🎉 Design
My initial angle for the designs involved a lot of round lines, bubbly shapes, laughing, and smiles. This tends to be where I start first; unless I'm conceptualizing an epic dragon fight poster.
After research, I ended up going neutral and car-oriented in terms of content, while still maintaining a fresh, clean appearance.
😌 Conclusion
This design project was small in terms of output and didn't include UX, but I learned a lot about taking time to consider how my designs will be viewed & digested by others. This sort of mindset is critical in product design!
If I had more time, I would have helped my friend design the UX and overall feel of the app, helped facilitate and review user testing, and designed more graphics to fill contentless pages.
Thanks for reading! 😄
