Envoy
iOS App Redesign
Envoy is a community-based electric vehicle sharing service, providing electric vehicles as an exclusive amenity to apartments, hotels, and workplaces.
Taking Envoy Beyond Los Angeles
In 2018, with the rise of electric scooter companies like Bird and Lime, Envoy was looking to expand their fleet with e-scooters and e-bikes, which would make them the only company to offer all three.
The app was in its early-stages with limited capabilities & features which led to a high volume of customer service requests.
I aimed to design an app that seamlessly integrated all vehicle types and demonstrated scalability to investors.
An App with Limited Design & Functionality
The app was still in its infancy stage and only supported one use case: reserving a car. Envoy stakeholders felt investor reactions to the app design were lackluster compared to the rest of their pitch and didn’t reflect the company vision.
The limited app capabilities meant they relied heavily on customer service for user complaints such as overcharging credit cards and vehicles not getting charged.
My Role
I led this three-month app redesign project with one designer and one design intern. This was in collaboration with a development agency we had bi-weekly meetings with and would later hand the design off to.
Insights on a Budget
Prioritizing Competitor Research over User Research
With only a few reservations a day, there wasn’t much data to learn from for the current app. Since I was designing for scalability, I believed I would learn more from testing out Envoy competitors that had a high volume of reservations and were more robust.
I tested out Maven, Waivecar, Zipcar, Bird, Lime and Lyft.
Competitor Insights:
-Some vehicles were not present at the start of my reservation (previous rider was running late) and I wasn't notified, nor offered any alternatives.
-Vehicles arrived dirty, messy and had personal belongings of previous riders (see image below)
-There was no area to report damages from previous riders
Quick & Dirty Insights
With limited time & budget for user research, I opted for approaching people on-site vs. spending time trying to recruit current customers.
We visited 2 Envoy locations to test out the experience ourselves and conducted 2 interviews.
Challenges mentioned by Envoy customers were:
-Forgetting to “end trip” on the app and getting overcharged
-Understanding specs & vehicle details when reserving i.e. trunk space for TV purchase or number of seats
Narrowing Down Numerous Edge Cases
There were hundreds of edge cases to consider for 3 vehicle types, I facilitated an exercise with stakeholders, customer service reps, and the development team to decide on what to prioritize for the first version of the redesign.
We prioritized edge cases that would make reservations fast and easy and would reduce customer service requests.
How might we make the rider feel community responsibility?
My assumption was that people had a greater sense of responsibility for the next rider since the vehicles were community-based. (You wouldn’t want your neighbor to pick up your nasty hairbrush, right?) I included features such as "rate the previous rider" & "notify app for late return" that might encourage users to take responsibility.
The New & Improved Envoy
FAST RESERVATIONS
Booking in 2 steps could make power users feel like booking an Envoy car felt fast & easy.
The user also has the option to scan & go for all vehicle types.
REDUCED CUSTOMER SERVICE REQUESTS
Riders would be prompted with a short questionnaire prior to their trip to report any previous damages as well as rate how the previous driver left the vehicle. If a damage was reported, customer reps would immediately take action.
Riders would receive a notification 15 minutes prior to the end of their reservation which would allow them to extend their trip and reduce the number of late returns.
Riders are prompted to answer questions in order to end their trip and lock the vehicle. This would help reduce customer service inquiries regarding lost items, damage responsibility and tickets.
Watch it in Action
