What is Shift?

SHIFT is a new mobile application designed with connecting those seeking adventure with those wanting to save their time before a vacation or moving across the country. It is designed to match drivers with car owners who need their vehicles transported across the province, country or continent.

Some seasonal vacationers who travel south for the winter don’t want the hassle of bringing their car on a 4-7 day drive, and would rather fly over a few hours. Our flexible users can fill this need by offering to bring it for them, and explore the open road while getting paid to have an adventure.

Project Objectives

The objective of this app is two-fold to meet the two key users of this application.

The idea is to match drivers with car owners wanting to move their vehicle across country or continent. Typically the car owners are snowbirds going to a sunny state for a few months, whereas drivers are people open to a road trip adventure with the destination being secondary.

The Solution

Create a modern platform for drivers/owners to find each other and organize the process end-to-end, as well as added features to ensure client satisfaction and ease of use. This allows the company to grow its user base, gain a higher market share, increase visibility, and ensure brand trust.

Tools

Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Indesign, InVision, Pen/Paper

DISCOVERY

This project stems from my history with a company by the name of Hittheroad.ca. I've used them multiple times to do various roadtrips across North America resulting in a great cost-effective vacation. When assessing the site and communication through Hittheroad, I completed SWOT analysis, scoured online reviews and testimonials, researched the travel and driving markets in both Canada and the United States, and spoke with other past users of the service - all to gather both qualitative and quantitative data to drive a solid solution.

SWOT Analysis

Personas

For this project, there were two vastly different users - a driver (someone typically young and budget conscious) and an owner (typically older, retired and looking to save time over money).

Content Structure and Inventory

After completing the breakdown of client and business wants/needs, I went further to breaking down important areas for both business and for clients.

Using this knowledge and backed up with my research data, I created a site content inventory of everything and anything that the application needed.

Architecture and User Scenarios

With my users in mind, I started laying out my content for my mobile app, organizing and highlighting key features and how users will access content and what they can/can't access at any given time.

This was done based on research of what is/isn't important to each of the users, however main design was driven by the drivers, as they can use the mobile app while on the road and using social features to keep them engaged while away from home and wanting to still be in contact with friends/family.

After completing the base structure of areas for the application, I ran user scenarios to try and find any process gaps and fill in keys areas that may be missing. I did this with the help of some people I interviewed and asking key questions like:

"What do you think would be the hardest part about taking a trip like this?"
"Why would you want to use the service? What appeals/doesn't appeal to you?"
"What do you think you would enjoy the most about this trip? What wouldn't you like about the experience?"

Steven has heard about this service from a friend at school and is curious if this would function for his upcoming spring break as a cheap vacation. He’s going get more info, to sign up, and browse available routes, and message a potential car owner about a route.

Steven is on his first drive and feels lonely. While taking a break to fill up, he’s wanting to engage his friends on social media using the apps abilities to get music, share his location, take a selfie, and see if anyone knows about good places to eat nearby his next stop 2 hours away.

Steven has been in an accident and needs to reach emergency services, as well as document the damage to the clients vehicle.

Steven is arriving at his destination. He wants to make sure he’s meeting in the right place and finishing the car handoff/ confirmation.

Interface DesigN

Now we're getting to the final touches on the application. Take a looking through my final design choices for SHIFT.

LANDING PAGE

The welcome screen shows off the SHIFT logo and wordmark.

Parallax scrolling shifts the logo and gradient design element away to show the login screen.

**WELCOME BACK**

The main page displaying the “Welcome back!” message inviting users to sign in using their last logged in account. With the sensitive nature, login will require a password or thumbprint after 4 hours of inactivity.

USER PROFILE

The main hub where users can control their settings and monitor all account activity, including searching for a new route. Users an mark themselves as available, or unavailable for owners when they’re searching for new drivers.

**MESSAGES**

Messages are home to all communication between drivers and owners. Drivers can offer routes through the messages section, and drivers are able to review/accept offers directly into this conversation.

**PHOTO JOURNEY**

No roadtrip is complete without the pictures to show for it. Adding photos to your journey and sharing the images has never been easier from the automated gallery.

**TRIP DETAILS**

When requesting a trip, drivers are able to review the details of the trip, including time, compensation, distance, vehicle information, gas estimation, as well as a direct contact/request dialogue buttons.

**SUGGESTIONS**

Your friends know best - why not trust them in making some trip decisions all that much easier. Share your route details with your social media, and friends can make suggestions along your route for places to go, things to eat, and everything else inbetween.

Animation

Created in Adobe After Effects, this simple animation shows how a user will interact with the Suggestions page to gather more information, and experience the interface.

Prototype

With the finishing touching finally in place, I took the screens over to the inVision platform. Paired with other areas of the project, the brief prototype highlights a few key features of the application to give a sense to a developer how the app should come together, animate and ultimately rollout.

View the SHIFT mobile application prototype here

User Impressions

Tester Name:
Heather Carlson

Feedback:
The design is solid and very eye-catching. Increased number of navigational elements would improve usability.

Furthermore, the ability to get back to the Hub on a previous trip would be beneficial for reviewing memories.

Reflections

There's always room for improvement in most digital products, and SHIFT is not exempt from this. I'll reflect on both positive and negative highlights from the project:

Useful:

The application itself does meet the user needs and requirements of the project. It functions properly while serving both function and entertainment to its users.

Usability:

The design is solid in terms of minimal aesthetic to have users feel engaged and interested to discover more and reuse the service multiples times.

Desirability:

The welcome screen and bright eye-catching colours improves desire to engage and return to the application

Find-ability:

The simplified layout and restricted access keeps the application from feeling bogged down and allows the features that users are currently looking for to be solely accessible without distractions from other features that aren’t currently relevant. This is shown in access to the Hub section only needed once a route is accepted and accessible to start loading content.

Credibility:

The solid and clean design, on top of the unique logo serves as a credible application. While my research turn up no other competition like this in the app store, this allows for the service to not compete with anyone else, or the concept to be tarnished by bad experiences.

Recommendations

I feel there is room for improvement in the driver user profile in terms of hierarchy of what car owners would be looking for in making their choice. iOS Navigation elements may help to serve user needs in terms of clarity.