Case Study: Exploring the integration of a carpool feature in the Skyscanner app

Introduction

I completed this project in 2 full days as part of my UX/UI Design bootcamp at Ironhack in January 2021. Each of us in the bootcamp had to think of a new feature to add to an existing app.

In my case, I was assigned the task to add a carpool feature to the Skyscanner app. The brief also added the statement that “at many airports a lot of travellers arrive at the same time and take individual taxis/uber to get to similar places”. A carpool feature would therefore allow travellers to save costs and reduce carbon emissions by sharing a ride.

So, what exactly is my role here?

This project was very interesting to take on because unlike the other projects I worked on during the bootcamp, this time round I was actually starting from a solution.

This at first threw me off balance: I was ready to start head-on with a survey because this was what I had done for previous projects (I know, big mistake!). As I was drafting the questionnaire, I found myself skewing the questions so that the answers I would get would validate that, indeed, people need a carpool feature on their Skyscanner app.

Obviously this didn’t feel right at all so, I stopped, re-focused and re-evaluated what my role actually was. And I found that I didn’t have to find data backing up that new feature request because I didn’t have to validate this new feature. That, in a real-world context, should this project be assigned to me as a designer, the new feature had already been validated by the team and that I needed to explore how to design it. The need had already been identified with users.

Now that I knew what my role was not and what I did not have to validate, I focussed on what I did have to know and explore. To understand what the user experience should look like and what I needed to design towards, I conducted secondary research as well as 6 user interviews to understand:

• How people are used to scheduling or requesting a carpool on existing apps in their daily commutes (not specifically when they are travelling);
• When do travellers usually think about their way of transportation from the airport to their final travel destination. This would also help me start thinking about the different decision moments the user has and therefore when to prompt the user to schedule their carpool request: i.e. after they have booked their trip on the Skyscanner app, or while at the airport;
• How do travellers use data when they land: i.e. do they use the airport’s Wi-Fi or their phone’s data;
• Where do travellers first go once they land: straight to their hotels? A tourist attraction? Any other places?

I would not share a ride with someone from the airport—you don’t know the person. And if you’re in a foreign country, you’re always more alert.

During user interviews, I also found out that few to no users would actually share a ride with a stranger from the airport while being in a foreign location. This is of course a very valid security concern which I believe deserves more than 2 days to be fully addressed and explored. Due to the time constraint of this project, I have not included this aspect in the MVP.

The secondary research I conducted helped me understand what the industry and the competitive landscape looks like, but also what people currently looking to share a ride are used to in terms of user interface and user experience. I found out that in many cities, ride-sharing companies “aren’t allowed” to pick up people from the airport.

How to present this new feature to the user so that it makes sense for them and the company?

The findings from user interviews and secondary research naturally led me to think about how this new feature would be presented to users.

Would it make sense for Skyscanner to create a whole new ride-sharing ‘side-app’, bearing in mind that competitors such as Uber or Lyft have a much stronger brand equity in that space, or that regulations in terms of airport passenger pick-ups are highly regulated? Given the recent rebranding of Skyscanner and its new mission to “lead the global transformation to modern and sustainable travel”, creating this new feature ‘native’ to the Skyscanner app would go against the business’ new mission.

Looking into their new vision, Skyscanner also mentions that they cannot lead this global transformation alone and are “working with the Duke of Sussex, and industry leaders, to form Travalyst [and] be a catalyst for change”. Currently, Skyscanner offers many options for the traveller to choose a sustainable way to travel — up until they reach their destination. So how can Skyscanner accompany its users into travelling sustainably until they have reached their travel destination? Or in other words:

As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them and so a partnership between Skyscanner and Uber is, I believe, a valid argument that is in line with the users’ needs and current habits in terms of ride-sharing as well as with the business mission.

How will this translate concretely on-screen for the users? Well, the design would be a mix of UberPool and Skyscanner. This so that users understand they are still in the Skyscanner app and are not being redirected to the Uber app — which would be problematic as the user might:

• Not have the Uber app installed/set up on their phone,
• Have connectivity problems,
• Need the whole process to have as little steps as possible.

User tasks & assumptions

Thinking of the moment and the environment surrounding the user when they would be using this feature, I intentionally designed it in as little steps as possible. The user might have a lot of luggages to take care of, kids to watch, connectivity issues that would slow the process. Here is my design proposition, designed on Figma:

Learnings

This was the first project I was doing solo and for which the deliverables were a high-fidelity prototype on top of the rest of the design thinking process. Though very challenging and anxiety-inducing (not having to convince anyone when taking decisions feels off), I extremely enjoyed working on this project! Some key learnings I got out of this project that will stick with me for as a Junior Designer:

• Keep your eyes on the end goal—pausing often in my work really helped to reflect on where I was heading and ensuring alignment with the final outcome. This is all the more important as I was working alone;
• Clearly define the problem—the big mistake I made at the beginning of the project was replicating the same methodologies I used for previous projects, without first assessing if they were relevant at all for this project. Had I not stopped, this could have cost me a lot of time and in a business setting, time is money and therefore, a costly mistake to make but — lesson learned!
• Always seek for feedback—this is an obvious one as a designer. You can’t enter this field and expect to design for yourself, by yourself. Check with users if your vision makes sense to them, check with peers how they would tackle a certain problem. This makes you richer as a person and as a designer.

Thanks for reading!

This article was written as part of the the UX/UI Design Bootcamp I followed in January — March 2021 at Ironhack.