Designing With Web
Part 3 · Phase 1: Prototype

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Group 1

Our group

• John GRUBER: link-to-part-2-assignment.glitch.me
• Mengke XU: link-to-part-2-assignment.glitch.me
• Xuchen HUANG: link-to-part-2-assignment.glitch.me
• Andrei KUCHMA: link-to-part-2-assignment.glitch.me
• Aidan ROSSI DE ARAUJO: link-to-part-2-assignment.glitch.me

Our subject

Our subject is Enable the development of soft mobility.
It comes from the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal number 3, which is entitled "Good health and well-being".

Our research question

The research question we have formulated together is "How to stimulate workers and students to use more bicycles/electric vehicles in the daily life?". The two projects ideas below try to answer that question.

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Project 1 · Long-term renting of bikes to students of universities

Context

The project can be applied in different contexts, but it is focused on cities and metropolitan regions, taking into consideration that bicycle is a mean of transportation specially used in short and medium distances. Apart from it, the long-term service allows the user to take the bicycle to different cities. Although the project is potentially useful in different countries, the current idea focuses on France.

The service is offered from the moment the user rents the bike till the restitution day, previously agreed.

Target + persona

The main target of the project are temporary residents of a city, which can be workers or students. The project focus on this profile because it includes people that will resist to buy definitely a mean of transportation considering that they aren’t permanent residents, but they’ll have a routine in the city and the bicycle can be a possible way to commute in the city. The low cost of bikes, comparing to other means of transportation, is another positive aspect to temporary residents, taking into consideration they don’t want to invest a huge sum of money in a temporary good.

Service offered

The long-term shared bicycle system based on a fixed place where people can rent bicycle for a long-term period. The user can book it to a specific period, according to personal neeeds. There are also different types of bicycle, including mountain bikes and speed, being electric or not.

The user is free to use the bicycle and there are some ways to avoid a misuse of it, such as a monthly general maintenance in the place where the bike was rented, an initial deposit to pay a new bike in the case the user does't return it till the agreed day (it will come back to the cycler when the bike's back on time) a GPS device installed in each bike to locate them.

Features + user flow

Features

• Feature 1 (key feature): Cycler rents a bike for a not short period of time;
• Feature 2: User can chose different types of bike, according to his/her needs;
• Feature 3: Locates the close places to take the bike and give it back;
• Feature 4: See recommendations and comments;
• Feature 5: Shows some mechanic workshops to fix when there are mechanical issues;
• Feature 6: Book it before arrives to select calmly the bike that better match with the user’s profile and supply station with the selected type of bike;
• Feature 7: Initial deposit to pay a new bike if it’s not returned after the agreed day;
• Feature 8: Identification of the user with ID, personal data and the payment card.

User flow

• Initial situation: A smartphone
• Step 1: Access from the University's app
  • Ex: BrightSpace
• Step 2: Create account
  • confirmation with University's student email adress
• Step 3: Landing on the homepage
  • tutorial to complete the profile
  • entering banking ID
  • filling in questionnaire for data
• Step 4: Come back to the home page
  • selection between the different kind of bikes
  • comparing the ups & downs of each bike
  • reviewing comments
  • booking the bike
• Step 5: Filling in the infomation to have the bike
  • payment
  • reserve a time to pick up the bike
• Step 6: Survey to rate the user experience & collect data
• Final situation: Job's done, the bike is on its way
  • exploring the other parts of the app:
    • Help
    • Q & A
    • Payment statement
    • Look for all the garages in the neighborhood

(Add a drawing of the user flow for the key feature here)

Illustrations

Benchmark

• EnCicla is a public bicycle renting service in Medellín, Colombia. It’s a public and free fare system connected with the public transportation network. The bikes are rented during the day and users must turn them back to one of the 101 stations spread in the city till 10PM. To rent a bicycle, one must first register online on EnCicla's official website.
• Vélo’v is a private sharing bicycle system in the metropolitan region of Lyon, including 424 stations spread in 18 cities. It’s possible to buy a ticket to use the bike once (€1,80), for 24 hours (€4) and for a year (€31 plus a restituable €150 of guarantee). Although this ticket is available to use during one year, the user has to bring the bicycle back to a station at maximum 30 min after take it and pays extra values to each extra minute.
• Capital Bikeshareis a private-public partnership to guarantee a bicycle-sharing system in the city of Washington D.C. In this case, all the 658 stations are owned by the government and the operation is conducted by the private company Motivate LLC. There are different ways of payment, according to how many minutes the user will be with the bike, but the replacement fee is $1200 in the case the user stays more than 24 hours with the bike.
• Hangzhou Public Bicycleis one of the biggest bicycle sharing systems, with more than 126.600 vehicles and 4.514 stations. It’s managed by the Hangzhou Public Transport Corporation and well-integrated to the public transport system. In accordance with the requirements of "market-oriented operation and public welfare services", the company focuses on promoting energy conservation and emission reduction, creating green transportation, adheres to scientific development and is committed to making it convenient for local citizens, Chineses from different regions and foreign tourists to use the bike, alleviating the "dilemma" of urban transportation.

References

• EnCicla: Sistema de Bicicletas Públicas del
• Vélo'v
• Capital Bikeshare: Metro DC's bikeshare service | Capital Bikeshare
• 杭州市公共自行车交通服务发展有限公司

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Project 2 · EasyCharge

Context

The project is designed to alleviate the problem of lacking charging stations and provided services with an affordable price. This project targets at avergae person, the workers and students that own the electric means of transport. It enables the students or workers, who want to charge their electric scooters, bikes, cars or bicycles that are running out of battery when they leave their own charging stations at home.

The geographical scope of our project is now limited to the European Union. The porject can be applied in any cities or towns that electric means of transport exists. As soon as the users download the app and use it, they can enjoy the services provided whenever they need to find a charging station.

Target + persona

The project targets on two types of people. One are the workers or students who use our application to find a charging station and charge their means of transport. They benefit from the project because they can have a temporary convenient charging place with an affordable price to solve their urgent needs of running out of battery. Another type of users are the owners of the charging stations, they use our application to share their idle charging stations and earn additional income.

Service offered

This basically a mobile app (Analog Airbnb/booking but for charge places) for students who want to charge their electro scooters/bikes/cars/bicycles everywhere.

Suppose there is one student who is going to the university and want to charge his/her transport nearly the university building. He/she open the mobile app and look at the nearest charge station places/price and possible duration. After that, he/she can contact and book appropriate private place for charging. Meanwhile, a seller can offer his/her place for charging (while he/she at home for example) in this case they can earn money. It is win-to-win situation

Features + user flow

Features

• Feature 1 (key feature): student - find comfortable charging place; seller- offer charging place to earn money
• Feature 2: Book charging place in advance
• Feature 3: Compare different charging stations/ places for prices/power/place/recommendations
• Feature 4: See recommendations and comments
• Feature 5: Find friends who are interesting in electro transport
• Feature 7: Fraud protection ( you need your ID to use this app)
• Feature 8: Partnerships (with universities for example)
• Feature 9: Calls and messages are possible in the mobile app
• Feature 10: Separate news/advices tab(forum/blog) where everyone can find useful information about electro transport. Also, everyone can describe personal story
• Feature 11: Possibility to connect your account with Facebook/ Instagram
• Feature 12: Possibility to buy or sell some tools for the electro transport
• Feature 13: Official agreement 2 sides agreement of provided services (Based on ID information)
• Feature 14: Possibility to pay by most common methods (Apple pay, VISA etc.)

User flow

• Initial situation: I am a student. I want to find a charging place elit
• Step 1: Open the app and create/log in personal account, and use my ID DATA to accept my account
• Step 2: Select my type of electro transport / time-duration (when) / place (Where)
• Step 3: Open the app map and look at the possible variants, and select the most comfortable variant. (Based on the seller rating, price, place etc.)
• Step 4: Book/pay for the service
• Step 5: Contact with the seller
• Step 6: Charge your mean of transport.
  Stay your transport in the seller place (= official agreement between 2 sides is signed) & Take transport out from the seller after the charging process.
• Step 7: Rate the seller = finish the service
• Final situation: I have full charged transport!!!!!!

UX Storyboard

Illustrations

Benchmark

• PlugShare is a free EV driver's app for iOS, Android, and web, allowing users to find charging stations, leave reviews, and connect with other plug-in vehicle owners. From within the app, users check-in when they charge, sharing tips, comments, and photos of their charging experiences.
       This app has the concept of guiding the users to charge points when they need, same as our project, however it focuses only on the electric vehicles, when our project focuses on more electric means of transport.
• E-BIKE CHARGEMAP is a simple and intuitive APP aimed at users of electric bikes, scooters other two-wheeled electric vehicles. The main function is to indicate the recharging points closest to the position of users or and navigate to the charging place.
       This app has overlapping user segments with our project, the riders of electric scooters, bikes, etc. However, this App only focus on the public charging places, while our project pays more attention to the private charging places. We bring value to both charging station owners and charging station users.

References

• PlugShare App Introduction
• E-Bike Chargemap