Bolt Micromobility
Group Rides
The joy of riding together
Context
At Bolt, I, as a Senior Product designer, was part of the Rentals team that focused on Micro-mobility specifically e-scooters and e-bikes. As we prioritised safety, parking and city regulations, We introduced new features in 2022, such as tandem riding detection which detected two people riding together on an e-scooter. While, this feature warned users about the safety as a precaution it failed as a preventive method.
*Tandem riding refers to more than one users riding on one vehicle together.
My Role
As a month old Senior product designer in the company, I collaborated heavily with the PM, UX researcher, EM, engineers, marketing team, data analyst, legal team, and my design manager to launch the feature within a tight timeline of 6 six, and launch within 4 months from ideation to implementation.
Success Metrics
GMV increase
Conversion of group ride feature
% Solo rides converting to group rides
Reduce CS tickets related to group ride parking
Avg. increase in ride length
Problem and Opportunity
Diving in more through research, we understood why users would choose not to use multiple vehicles in a group and use tandem riding even when there were other Bolt vehicles around.
Tandem Riding
We discovered several reasons that hindered the use of our service for micro-mobility. Some users didn't have the Bolt application installed on their devices, while others had low battery levels. Additionally, female riders were hesitant to download and use micro-mobility apps due to safety concerns when riding alone.
Lack of options
Limited options for unlocking multiple vehicles on Bolt discouraged users. When only one user had the Bolt application, it was difficult for all users to unlock multiple vehicles because of the lack of options. This often resulted in users either riding together or choosing a different operator.
Tandem riding remained a frequent cause of accidents, causing 5.12% of all accidents recorded by Bolt.
Riding in tandem is an extremely unsafe way of riding a scooter. With safety at the core of Bolt, we released a feature called Tandem riding detection, which alerted users when we detected more than one person on a scooter. To better understand the practice of riding in groups, what leads to tandem riding, the challenges users face we spoke to our users and.......
Talking to more users we soon realised that our existing solution was
There was no way for our users to rent more than one scooter in certain circumstances it is a challenge we face in all major cities including Berlin, Lisbon and Barcelona.
a reaction to an unsafe riding behaviour rather than preventing one.
Crazy 8s: Expanding horizons to focus early
Given a six weeks of tight deadline, I started with crazy eights and explored a number of approached on a high level. These approaches were to expand thinking and narrow down on logical reason irrespective of technological constraints. Later, in collaborated with the rentals team, design team, and product team to develop a strategy that ensured and prioritised the crucial aspects to construct, test, and launch the most valuable feature. By leveraging on research insights, we emphasised on the most significant touch-points that allowed users to reach their user goals faster throughout the user journey- pre-ride, during ride, and end-ride. I also cam up with guiding principles that helped keep focus on the design decisions.
Approach 1
Approach 2
Approach 3
Design Decisions
Multiplying from "the" core journey
Since all our journeys started with one vehicle, building on top of the core journey gave us a competitive edge. We distinguished our UX by letting users organically add more vehicles anytime after initiating a solo ride.
Progressive Disclosure with Expandable Cards
Unlocking multiple vehicles would mean to multiple times the information on vehicle card. It was important to progressively disclose information that helped users identify different vehicles and also get an overall trip status.
Entry point
For users who become aware of the feature and use the services for the purpose of riding together: A new entry point was introduced on the map screen to increase ease of access and recall.
Slowing down for improved and informed parking
We made a strategic decision to let users end rides separately at end-ride journey due to increasing city rules. This deliberate friction ensured all vehicles in a group ride parked properly retaining existing behaviour, reduced the possibility of city fines.
Group Ride
When starting a group ride, users can reserve and scan up to four vehicles at the same time. After the vehicles are unlocked, users would view, the map screen has an overview of the status of each vehicle and ride time. Managing vehicles was a dedicated separate screen upon pulling the bottom sheet up, providing users with control over the group ride experience. Progressive disclosure ensured that users were not overloaded with more information than required.
We did a card sorting exercise during user testing that informed us that the most important information users cared about was ride time and zone information. The manage ride screen allowed the main user to track the real-time location of each vehicle, check battery levels, and lock/unlock and end individual scooters or e-bikes.
Starting a group ride from a solo ride
Around 70% of our Bolt micro-mobility rides begin with the scan button on the map. This makes the scan button and user behavior very important to retain. This has led to questions such as how the user should be made aware of the feature when they have already started a ride, and how strong the interface should be. It was important not to distract users from their core flow, so the solution was to create a subtle entry point. During our competitive research, we discovered that our competitors did not offer the option to add a vehicle after starting a solo ride, which gave us an opportunity to improve our offering.
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