Caocao Driver Scheduled Trips Pool

Overview

Caocao is a leading rideshare service in China, comparable to Uber and Lyft in the US, that primarily employs full-time drivers.

I led the redesign of the driver's scheduled trip feature to improve the trip-accepting experience and increase platform revenue.

My role

Design Lead

UX Design

User Research

Team

1 x product manager

1 x UI designer

4 x engineer

1 x data scientist

Timeline

2021.04 – 2021.06

User problem

Drivers can only passively receive scheduled trips, missing many opportunities to receive more trips.

Acceptance rate of scheduled trips

26%

Research

Data analysis

I worked with the data analytics team, got the data: acceptance rate of scheduled trips was just 26%.

It means that many trips were lost, which can affect riders' experience and drivers' salaries. We wanted to improve this data.

User interview

I conducted a user interview with one UI designer. From 16 drivers, we learned that drivers wanted more flexibility, and the current experience had real problems.

Can't get trips offline

Drivers can only take scheduled trips online, but they want to do it offline, like when they come home.

14 drivers mentioned

Want to plan trips

Some drivers want to plan trips to match their habits, like they expect a first trip near their home.

10 drivers mentioned

Accept wrong trips

When there are a lot of scheduled trips, the existing design can cause drivers to easily accept the wrong one.

12 drivers mentioned

Proposed solution

Retaining the current dispatch strategy, I introduced driver choice in selecting city-wide scheduled trips.

Combining passive trip delivery with a new scheduled trips pool drivers can browse and select from

Project goals

01Increase turnover of the Caocao platform
02Increase acceptance rate of scheduled trips
03Resolve users' problems with the current design

Design challenges

After an in-depth understanding of the product requirement, combined with the previous user research, I found that there were two parts I need to put more efforts to design: solving the original experience problems of the scheduled trips feature and making the process of accepting the new trip smooth. Specifically.

Reduce driver mishandling when accepting trips
Make the process of accepting trips intuitive

Cross-functional flow of a rider scheduling a trip through to a driver accepting it

Challenge 1

Reduce driver mishandling when accepting trips

Problem

Drivers face challenges accurately accepting a specific scheduled trip when many trips come in at once, leading to accidental acceptance of the wrong one — which costs them money or adds stress.

Related data

Resend rate of scheduled trips is 7%.

Current design

Ideation

I started brainstorming and conducted competitor analysis to generate multiple design ideas.

Slide-to-accept interaction explored to reduce accidental taps

1. Change from click to slide

Longer action time allows drivers to realize and avoid mis-clicking release button.

One-trip-at-a-time card design with additional trips stacked behind it

2. Display one trip at a time

With additional trips shown behind the current one, drivers can swipe to view and decline the next trip.

Design critique

I conducted a design critique session with PMs and other designers, and I learned:

Critique insight — showing one trip at a time helps differentiate passively received trips from the scheduled trips pool

Critique concern — since drivers are in an unstable in-car environment, this design could still cause mishandling

Final design

The improved design displays one trip at a time, with a notification for incoming trips. Drivers can open the notification to access the scheduled pool and select additional trips, streamlining the process.

Challenge 2

Make the process of accepting trips intuitive

After a driver selects a trip, it isn't confirmed right away — other drivers may be competing for the same trip, and the platform assigns it to whichever driver fits best, creating a waiting period. The current design doesn't make this waiting status clear to drivers, so I wanted to make it more intuitive.

Flow from accepting a trip through waiting for the competition result to finishing the trip

Ideations

These were the two most solid solutions among multiple ideas at that time.

Enter-the-pool idea — accepting a trip leads into the scheduled pool page showing competition status

Enter the scheduled pool

After accepting the trip, the page changes to the scheduled pool page, where drivers can see the competition status.

Back-to-work idea — accepting a trip returns to the home screen with a status badge

Back to work + status badge

After accepting the trip, the page returns to the previous screen and shows an icon with a status badge, letting drivers continue their work.

User testing

I collaborated with another designer on user testing, testing 6 drivers through a high-fidelity prototype — since the team couldn't reach consensus on the best solution between the two ideas above, user testing was crucial in determining the final design.

Back to work

After accepting a trip, drivers prefer to return to their previous workflow rather than selecting more.

Prioritize trip price

When selecting trips, drivers focus first on price, then time and pickup point.

See pickup distance

To better select trips, drivers want to see the distance between the pickup point and their current position.

Final design

Impact

Comparing the data of 4 months before and after the project launch, we get the following results.

Acceptance rate of scheduled trips up from 26% to 47%, resend rate down from 7% to 3%, and monthly turnover up $70,000

Learnings

Beyond interface design

User experience design isn't only about the interface — it also depends on the service, environment, and hardware at every touchpoint along the way.

Frequent team communication

Working closely with PMs and engineers is important — it helps me identify and correct issues in a timely manner.