01
Why do I want to design ShareU?
1.1 Challenge
How might we provide a portable way when people forget carrying the umbrella in the rainy day?
1.2 What is ShareU?
This case creates a mobile application and a rental machine, which users are able to book umbrellas whenever they are needed. Also users can pool with other users’ umbrella when they are hard to reach to the rental machine.
1.3 Scenario in the daily life
During the winter, it was always raining in the Bay Area. Sometimes it rained suddenly. People feel hard to get umbrella when they are already outside. It should have the same issue wherever.
- Some people forget their umbrellas during raining days.
- Some people don’t like to carry their umbrellas even in rainy days.
Here I came up the idea – ShareU. ShareU targets to someone outside without umbrella in the raining day. When we are outside in the raining days, usually we take Uber or walking. ShareU offers a brand-new product. The user can pick up umbrella from the nearby station or some specified office pots. If there are no rental umbrella pots nearby, users can pool with others. Therefore the users can book an umbrella anyway. In order to ensure safety, ShareU umbrella adapts the transparent texture to create a roomy space. It is the way to reduce anxiety. The solution is tested via couple rounds testings. 90% users affirm that way.
02
Overview of The Final Design
03 Research Highlights
3.1 SWOT analysis
Strengths
- Users are able to share umbrella with others during a rainy day.
- Easy and cheap to use.
- This product is reused and environment friendly.
Weakness
- If users rent umbrella many times, the price will be more expensive than buying an umbrella.
- Company needs to repair or replace umbrellas regularly.
- Consumers must trust this product.
Opportunity
This product’s primarily target users who forget carrying umbrella during a rainy day, or don’t know if it will be raining. In the past, they have to wait in the shelter, take an Uber or other alternative ways to get around the city. Once two people have the similar destinations, these two can potentially share an umbrella- for those who are willing to share.
Threat
- Make sharing function more secured.
- This rental system will impact traditional umbrella field.
- Pay more attention on product maintenance and management.
3.2 Competitors
Most companies created the rental machine without mobile application. Once it starts raining, users feel difficult to stop by the machine to get/return the umbrella.
04 Target Audience
4.1 Target Audience
No umbrella
Middle Income
Social guy
4.2 Persona
Name: Elisa
Age: 30 years old
Gender: Female
Occupation: Sales Representative
Location: Seattle, WA
Elisa is a Sales Representative who lives in Seattle, and she needs to take a bus to get to work. Seattle is always raining, so she has to carry an umbrella everyday- unfortunately she always forgets to carry her umbrella when she leaves her house. Therefore, she always gets wet in the rain. She wants to get a reminder about the weather and rent umbrella place near her.
05 Process
5.1 Analyze the necessary design elements and goals
- Why would use rental umbrella?
- They don’t carry umbrella.
- There are no transit system.
- The distance is not so far. It doesn’t worth taking a Uber/Lyft.
- They don’t want to carry the wet umbrella.
- Who are going to use rental umbrella?
- Somebody has already outside without umbrella in the rainy day.
- Get to somewhere by walking.
- How would they get it?
- Rental umbrella machine nearby the station or office building
- What would they do before booking umbrella?
- Book umbrella by mobile application
- Confirm the pick-up location and time
- When would they return?
- Return it another day
- Pool with other users. Kind of delivering to person.
5.2 Low to mid fidelity wireframes to explore different options.
5.3.1 User testing
1. The users are confused about the hamburger menu. They do not like clicking multiple times to navigate through the app.
2. The most anxious part is the pool function. Users are worried about the safety between them and strangers. They are seeking additional options to protect their personal safety.
3. The pool page needs to display an estimate fee between destinations.
4. Before paying the fees, the users prefer a summary page to review their order and fee.
5. Missing option for selecting how long to rent the umbrella.
5.3.2 Improvement
What I improved:
- Switched hamburger menu to bottom bar menu.
- Re-designed icons.
What I improved:
- Added the function of umbrella return time.
- Applied the transparent umbrella as the only umbrella.
What I improved:
- Designed the new layout for “Add the Card”.
- Deleted the address info and add the new payment method.
What I improved:
- Added additional order information on the receipt.
- Changed bar code to QR code.
- Added share button in case users would like to pool this ride with other users.
What I improved:
- Added the estimate fee and time.
What I improved:
- The “confirm” button and “cancel” button don’t make sense for users. Deleted all of them to add “help” and “arrived”.
- Once users are in the dangerous condition, the “help” buttons would dial 911 directly or other emergency way.
06 Prototyping
Rent umbrella
Pool with others
07 Conclusion
I can draw a conclusion that a good UI design should look beautiful on appearance, but most importantly have a clear structure, pay attention to the user experience, be unique, simple and concise for users to understand. When I designed all of screens, I used grid to ensure every parts are in alignment. An excellent UI design should be consistent on the style in order to make users clearly understand and respond to the given content. This will also do good to improve the work efficiency.