Case study: Saudi’s first scooter rental app

Swapnil Shinde
Bootcamp
Published in
6 min readMar 1, 2021
A Case Study for Wayz — Saudi’s First Scooter Rental App

Client: WAYZ
Project Timeline: November 2019 — February 2020
Focus: UX Research & Design
Location: Remote (Team scattered between Dubai and Mumbai)
Live App Store Link: https://apps.apple.com/sa/app/wayz-goes-every-wayz/id1569831891
Live Play Store Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wayz.android

Background

With electric scooters and rental cycles popping up in every country across the globe, WAYZ approached us intending to bring the first electric scooter and cycle model to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Wayz is known to be quite popular on social media in Saudi. Living up to the expectations was important to me but as a lead product designer, I wanted to make sure I deliver a product that sets the bar for all the other rental apps that come after.

Design Challenge

Before I started my user research I wanted to get myself on the same page as Wayz. Their goals and priorities as an organization. I wanted to know what their expectations were and discuss how we could attain what they were trying to achieve.

After understanding the stakeholder requirements, I devised a 5-step plan for us to get to our goal.

UX Process I followed

1. Research

Stepping into the research phase, I wanted to dig deep and understand what other scooter rental apps are doing. Keenly looking for what users were expecting. To truly understand what users are looking for, I conducted 5 in-person and 5 phone interviews, carried out a competitive audit and took a survey of 35 participants.

This deep dive gave me the following information:

  • People were more likely to onboard via word of mouth
  • With a median age of 29 and a 64.7% internet penetration rate we could place our target audience in the ever-expanding internet empire
  • Even though English was widely spoken, Arabic is the official language and the app would be to both languages to welcome all users
  • The per capita income in Saudi is higher than their western counterparts, hence they could afford higher prices

2. Define

Concluding my research phase, I compiled a shortlist of insights I gained from the session. Here are the most critical points:

  • People lacked trust in e-scooter availability when in dire need of one
  • Pedestrians around the world were frustrated by the dock scooters
  • Users preferred a wallet system over a credit card system
  • 60% of the users were interested in sharing credit card information for a free ride
  • A lot of usability tests were conducted with users in Saudi, and they were content with the app’s flow thus keeping most of the flow the same for ease of use

Post analyzing all the gathered research data, the user persona and storyboard helped us better visualize new features for the app.

One of our storyboards

2. Define

Concluding my research phase, I compiled a shortlist of insights I gained from the session. Here are the most critical points:

  • People lacked trust in e-scooter availability when in dire need of one
  • Pedestrians around the world were frustrated by the dock scooters
  • Users preferred a wallet system over a credit card system
  • 60% of the users were interested in sharing credit card information for a free ride
  • A lot of usability tests were conducted with users in Saudi, and they were content with the app’s flow thus keeping most of the flow the same for ease of use

Post analyzing all the gathered research data, the user persona and storyboard helped us better visualize new features for the app.

2. Define

Concluding my research phase, I compiled a shortlist of insights I gained from the session. Here are the most critical points:

  • People lacked trust in e-scooter availability when in dire need of one
  • Pedestrians around the world were frustrated by the dock scooters
  • Users preferred a wallet system over a credit card system
  • 60% of the users were interested in sharing credit card information for a free ride
  • A lot of usability tests were conducted with users in Saudi, and they were content with the app’s flow thus keeping most of the flow the same for ease of use

Post analyzing all the gathered research data, the user persona and storyboard helped us better visualize new features for the app.

2. Define

Concluding my research phase, I compiled a shortlist of insights I gained from the session. Here are the most critical points:

  • People lacked trust in e-scooter availability when in dire need of one
  • Pedestrians around the world were frustrated by the dock scooters
  • Users preferred a wallet system over a credit card system
  • 60% of the users were interested in sharing credit card information for a free ride
  • A lot of usability tests were conducted with users in Saudi, and they were content with the app’s flow thus keeping most of the flow the same for ease of use

Post analyzing all the gathered research data, the user persona and storyboard helped us better visualize new features for the app.

3. Ideate

Now from what we defined and our learnings, we sat down to draw out our solutions. Keeping the different user groups in mind we outlined a step-by-step narrative for the problem at hand. One of the most critical learning was that users worried about the availability of scooters when in need.

On brainstorming, we came up with the idea of pre-booking scooters. This allowed users to know for sure that they will have a scooter to travel with. To make the best use of the feature we did an in-depth study to bring more clarity. Using this we mapped out the final solution as a user flow diagram.

4. Prototype

I made low-fidelity prototypes of the final ideas we had discussed upon from the previous phase. After being reviewed and validated by my team members, I converted them into High Fidelity prototypes. At this stage, we wanted to make sure we iteratively cover each scenario that a user could interact with the app.

5. Test

Based on the final prototypes we would go ahead with usability testing. Sealing all modes and use cases of interaction, while iteratively improving was what we worked on.

Current Progress

01 August 2021 – WAYZ is officially operational and has received a fantastic reception from Saudi Arabians. WAYZ has earned a name for itself as Saudi Arabia’s first creative firm to offer solar charging stations in its category, with all of the company’s charging stations now powered by solar energy.

One of WAYZ’s solar charging stations

02 February 2021 – As of now, we are currently repetitively testing and iterating to improve our prototypes for development. We have been testing on multiple fronts and making sure we leave no gaps so it’s absolutely user-friendly.

Progressively checking on the user flow is important to make sure that Wayz delivers the experience that users would expect from them.

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Swapnil Shinde
Swapnil Shinde

Written by Swapnil Shinde

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