E-Rick: Design Sprint at IIT Roorkee.
The solution prepared during the Design sprint conducted by SDSLabs (IIT Roorkee) and Design Studio (IIT Roorkee) regarding the problems of e-rickshaws.
3 teams. 2 days. 1 problem to solve.
A 2 days design sprint was conducted by SDSLabs IIT Roorkee and Design Studio IIT Roorkee, with a problem statement focusing on the unavailability of e-rickshaws in the campus. The team worked on proposing an application along with the help of administration to focus on the problems of unavailability, payment methods, and route optimization. The team consisted of 6 members Pramit Singhi, Jayant Mishra, Divya Mangal, Vishwajeet Singh Bhadouria, Yash Gupta, Purvi Agarwal.
Problem Statement -
Problems Specified:
E-rickshaws are the primary means of commute inside the campus. They have a large user base including students and residents. Manual rickshaws exist but are time-consuming and relatively expensive. The problems associated with the current system.
- Digital payment is not accepted.
- Unavailability of e-rickshaws at certain hours or at certain places in the campus.
- Route of rickshaws is not optimized according to the different destinations of different users sitting in it.
- Verification of outside rickshaws.
- Difficult for rickshaw drivers to find rides, heated disputes between drivers. Function in an unorganized manner.
- Prices specified by administration and amount that drivers actually charge are different.
Assumed Data:
Total no. of registered e-rickshaws in the campus: 40.
Rickshaw stands in the campus and their density at a different time (They mainly exist outside Kasturba Bhawan Hostel and Rajiv Bhawan Hostel).
No. of outside rickshaws in the campus at a given time (at Rajiv Bhawan max 10, Kasturba Bhawan around 5).
No. of drivers who accept payments through Paytm (about 1/4th of total).
**Participants can assume the data for any point not given above provided they mention it clearly.**
Sprint Process -
The design sprint was conducted with an aim to provide a learning project for all the designers be it the beginners or people who have worked with industry. The main focus areas were the methods to decide and differentiate solutions, following a proper path of design to not miss out anything, working with a team of different skillset in a limited time, learn various skills of user experience, visual hierarchy, user interaction etc. As the major people participating in the sprint were college students, the sprint process was fixed and with various deliverables at every stage, so everyone follows the same process at least.
The 3 stage diamond model design process was followed. It is a very popular design model focused on a complete design journey and is generally followed in various design sprints. Each diamond has 2 phases, so in total there are 6 phases to be completed to go over a product. These phases are:
- UNDERSTAND (HMW Notes, Affinity Mapping, User Experience Map)
- DEFINE (Vision Statement, Golden Path)
- SKETCH (Solution Sketches)
- DECIDE (Importance and difficulty matrix)
- PROTOTYPE (Storyboard, Final Prototype)
- VALIDATE (Results of walkthrough)
HMW notes
‘How Might We’ notes include the ideas written by everyone in the team during/ after the lightning talk. They help to collect as many ideas as possible in different directions which are affecting the user directly. The maximum notes were mainly focussed onto the direct problems including the payment mode and the availability option. The HMW section basically allows you to put out any idea related to the problem be it a solution, a bad experience, another problem caused due to the given problem, anything works to get a better view at the problem.
Affinity Mapping
After successfully collecting all the ideas during the HMW session, the team discussed all the ideas noted one by one and tried to segregate them into different groups. We were able to group our ideas into 9 categories —
- Mode of payment
- Route optimization
- Price optimization
- Time availability
- Organization availability
- Security
- Driver’s problems
- Technical
- Miscellaneous
The major problems which came out with affinity mapping related to the e-rickshaws were the payment mode and availability issues.
User Experience Map
It comprises of the user’s current experience regarding the problem and his sentiment analysis. The chart is divided into successive steps of the actions to be done by the user for a successful end. The 4 basic actions:
Finding an e-rickshaw — — Journey route — — Payment — — Drop off
During these steps, all ‘pain point’ the user face is considered to be the problem needed to be solved. The problems are of availability, discussing journey route, discussing money and then the user boards the e-rickshaw. Then the user has to go through an indirect route because of other co-passengers and can feel less secure. Then after the user reaches its drop location, he doesn’t have an option to give feedback or complaint at an instant.
Opportunities are the areas where solutions can be thought of. Basically, after brainstorming, the team can think of various areas to tap into to make solutions. The opportunities noted are divided into various sections
- Availability — Dynamic Stands, Repair centers/ charge points, Incentives for night drivers, night time duty regularized, making a price model, schedule rides.
- Journey — Track the e-rick, initial direction, share ride tracking, and contact info.
- Payment — Weekly regulation of money, Training for technical issues.
- Drop off — Robust complaint portal
To move into the next step i.e. to define the golden path and vision statement we were extremely confused into understanding the primary user. Thus to make it clear for the team we made the many possible cases based on different conditions and assumed the user action based on it. The cases made were segregated based on the three primary zones divided coming from the experience map.
Vision Statement
It clearly states your target or goal for the solution designed. It helps you to not deviate from the goal decided during the coming design process. This statement is the defined purpose of the solution to be designed and the final product always lies around the lines of the vision statement. Our vision statement:
Get an easy and secure ride with the convenience of digital payment inside the campus.
Golden Path
This path defines the main user flow on which the solution is focused during the sprint, as in a little time a complete product for all the users is not feasible. It consists of the main path for which the solution is designed in the sprint and leaving the particular test cases.
Solution Sketch and Decide
Now as we had a clear idea about various problems and user flow, what direction to follow, which problems to solve for etc. We entered Diamond model stage-2 where we have to draw out solutions individually for all the opportunities. The team was able to come up with generally similar solutions and as we had less time to finish things off, we decided to strike out individualism and sketch and sit together and discuss the solutions to make things fast. In this way, we were able to complete two steps in less time. Thus different solutions for all the opportunities.
- Availability:
Among the various solutions, we decided to go with “dynamic stand” concept which changes according to the user requirements rather than simple static stands that are formed because of the lack of knowledge. - Tracking e-rickshaws:
The minimum amount of e-ricks can be shown in the ‘map view’ of the user and as we will have the GPS location of all the e-ricks we can show the user if there is a pool of e-ricks nearby. The same information can be shared using ‘list view’. - Show the number of empty seats:
The driver-side interface helps to shows the number of seats available. It is also helpful in ‘urgent’ booking. - Price model and Payment:
Tracking the journey and asking the user to press a button every time even for short distances leads to bad experience. An e-rickshaw is used for fixed places in IITR and outside campus as well. So showing a simple list of the prices at the payment option solves the problem of varied pricing.
The payment for the drivers can be collected from the administration office on a weekly basis in cash and the digital payment can be directly sent by the users to a single account.
The e-rick driver will have his account payment details always available with him on his device. - Trips:
All the urgent/ schedule trips are listed in one section of “Your trips”. It contains all the information regarding the current trip, upcoming trips, and past trips. Also includes pay option for the current trip. - Schedule and Urgent:
Urgent booking option comes as a notification to the driver with the drop-off location, the surged price so as an incentive for the drivers to take the ride and the contact details of the person. The drivers will be selected on the basis of location. The request will be programmed in order, considering both empty seats and proximity. Schedule trips will also have the same situations but no price surges. - Share your tracking journey to a friend:
For the security cases, the user can send a friend the link to the continuously tracked location. Also includes the driver contact details and complaint portal number. (No screens were made).
Final Screens
Diamond model stage-3. The interface is designed in this stage. The product is made ready keeping the golden path and the vision statement in mind.
The user side screens were focused on the three sections which were emphasized in the experience map.
The driver side design was focused on the same functionality and some assumptions regarding the driver’s character were taken into consideration during design. The color code was one such thing, use of red color for urgency. Also, the functionality side for the driver was kept minimum so the driver may not get into technical difficulties.
Learnings during the whole sprint -
- Diamond model 3-stage design process for efficient work.
- The effectiveness of affinity mapping to pick out various problems, and to pick the most common and obvious problems from it.
- Experience mapping based on how a user feels or acts in a particular situation.
- Visual language from the perspective of two different persons — user and driver.
Overall, it was a fun experience working with people from different skills and making a single solution. The discussions are the best part of the sprint, where reasons for different decisions help us to keep everything inline. It connects everything. Initially, it was thought that maybe designing a solution is not possible in 2 days till the UI screens but when it comes to work, people really put up their 100%. That’s something which is brilliant about design. We are so passionate about things that it boosts our confidence to the next level to do things which seemed impossible at first.
