How I redesigned Uber iOS app

Introduction

Come on, why doing this?

Everybody loves Uber. You most probably love it. My mom loves it. Finally, I do too. My personal love is proved by evidence of about hundred rides since its start in Russia. Remember my first order of a taxi with Uber app: everything was smooth and truly magical in compare to other taxi apps we used.

But localization sucked.

It is kind of hard to make a redesign of an app that was already beautifully redesigned half a year ago by the Uber design team, lead by Didier Hilhorst.

I didn’t want to put up with this perfection (there is time and place for improvement in any project) and started to ask my friends about their experience with Uber app and most of them claimed that it was already a masterpiece and had no cons. Thank gods, some of my friends are pretty meticulous and pointed me out their bad experience and notes. That seemed like a nice beginning!

Another great source of people needs and opinions were comments on a medium post about latest Uber redesign.

So with these two sources of Uber cons and potential solutions I made my own «to-do» list:

Problems:

1. It’s much easier to move pin while selecting your start location, ’cause gps sometimes sucks and mandatory «fast route» point sucks.
2. Promo cards are annoying.
3. Sometimes you don’t have time to write or you simply don’t know the exact final address.
4. I want to see both destinations on a main screen: start and finish.
5. It’d be more informative to see destinations in a “Your Trips” screen not maps.
6. “Free Trips” are not free.
7. Drivers can’t find you quickly sometimes.
8. “Help menu” and “Your trips” look alike at first glance.
9. There’s a problem with alignments in russian localization.
10. Too much animation, and it is slow.
11. The choice of favorite destinations is strange sometimes.

Solutions:

1. Float pin on initial location.
2. «Tell driver onboard» option.
3. Proposed better pickup points.
4. 2-field address input.
5. More obvious address choice with multiple destination option.
6. Easy access to call to driver button.
7. Say no to burger menu in 2k17.

And what I suggest

Not to forget, checking out Uber alternatives (Lyft, Yandex Taxi, Gett, Didi, Grab) from all around the world was also very helpful. So by following Uber guidelines with some slight violations I came to this app design:

So what you can see here is familiar 2-field address input, drawable pin, favorite locations, ability to order Uber without telling exact destination, to order a scheduled ride and promocards beloved by millions.

Next to come are destination choice screens with a possibility to add multiple addresses.

Then confirmation screens come:

Now Uber algorithms suggest you better pickup point without being mandatory.

Long story short, after you completed all these manipulations with address and car type there comes the car search screen and after one is successfully found a screen with driver location and info pops up.

If you’re one of those who open Uber app while being on a ride, then you can whether follow your current track status or check Yelp reviews on the restaurant you are heading or check cinema schedule, for instance.

And some of other screens:

Thanks for reading!