CarpoolNU
Designing Accountability: Enhancing User Reliability Through Reviews
Role:
UX Designer
Sandbox is Northeastern's student-led software consultancy. In a previous semester, CarpoolNU was created. The site connects Northeastern students (drivers & riders) who commute to similar locations during their co-ops/internships into carpool groups. As part of the interview to become a UX designer for Sandbox, I was tasked to add a feature.
The Problem
CarpoolNU was great for connecting students, but it had a pretty big flaw: there was no way to hold users accountable. This led to no-shows, tardiness, and rudeness. Basically, it made it hard for folks to actually trust the platform. There needed to be a system in place to fix that.
Challenges
The challenge wasn't just about adding a review system; it was about integrating it so smoothly that users would instinctively adopt it. This meant navigating the balance of introducing a significant new feature while also maintaining CarpoolNU's existing branding and core functionalities. By prioritizing user muscle memory, the goal was to ensure the new accountability tools felt inherently part of the familiar CarpoolNU experience, minimizing any learning curve and maximizing user adoption.
Research
My research for the CarpoolNU redesign began with exploring the existing site, analyzing its features, pain points, and user flow. User interviews revealed a key issue: lack of accountability. For example, users like Sarah reported frustration with last-minute driver cancellations causing lateness, while David, a driver, highlighted the problem of rider no-shows. This research, which included a competitive analysis of apps like Uber to identify best practices, along with a UX Persona and Storyboard, emphasized the need for solutions like cancellation penalties, user ratings, and clearer communication features.
Process
Given the time constraints, I focused on a key design solution: building a review system and public profiles showcasing those reviews. The goal was to boost accountability and build greater user trust within CarpoolNU. To visualize this, I put together wireframes and some lo-fidelity mockups of these new features. For inspiration, I looked at how established ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft handle reviews and profiles, adapting their successful approaches to fit the unique context of Sandbox and CarpoolNU.
Design Solution
The idea was simple: let people rate their rides anonymously with stars and written feedback, and even send private notes. I added common tags to quickly describe how a ride went. Furthermore, I designed profiles where you could see someone's picture, their availability, location, preferred times, their average rating, and the most popular tags they have received.
The goal with these features was to make CarpoolNU feel more reliable and safe. By letting people leave anonymous reviews and see ratings and tags on profiles, everyone gets a better sense of who they might be carpooling with. The direct messaging is there for more personal feedback. Ultimately, these changes were all about building a community where people feel more comfortable and confident sharing rides. And to make sure things felt familiar, I kept the existing CarpoolNU branding and overall site layout as they were.
Outcomes
After asking users to use the new prototype, it was great to see how much they liked the review system. They felt it helped keep everyone accountable, and being able to see ratings and sort by them made it much easier to find the best drivers or riders. The fact that reviews were anonymous made people feel more comfortable sharing honest feedback, and having those public profiles added to the feeling of trust and openness when carpooling. I did get feedback on implementing a reminder system. In the future, I would like to implement a notification system with text reminders and updates.
What I learned
Looking back on my first website redesign, the importance of doing my homework really stands out. Between exploring the current design of the site, reading design blogs, and actually talking to users, I got a much clearer picture of how to make the design better while maintaining the branding. Most importantly, research gave me solid reasons for every design decision I made, which was super handy during my case study interview. It paid off – I'm now a designer at Sandbox!
