Caravan
Problem
Non-profit managers do not have the expertise and resources to engage with mobility solutions
Role
UX Associate (Product Development Lead)
Process
User Research, Affinity Analysis, Personas, Use Cases, Sketches, Prototype
Tools
Xtensio, Adobe XD, Asana
1. Research
Interviews
Limited access to mobility has been a chronic issue in the urban areas, especially in our city Detroit. Our team conducted 50+ interviews with low-income community residents, community development organization managers, city governments, impact investors, and philanthropists to gain a deeper understanding about the problem area.
I coordinated the interviews by developing the interview protocols, arranging appointments, and participating as an interviewer or a note-taker. Then, I led the team in affinity analysis and created personas to represent the target customers.
Affinity Analysis
Affinity analysis
Trips
organizations have daily trips from and to their centers and weekly/monthly pre-planned trips. The minimum cost is $10/person per trip.
Current Solutions
organizations provide transportation to its members through $400+ van rental per day, illegal driving, or going without.
Constraints
organizations often face with limited economic and social resources and social distrust
User Personas
User personas
We developed the primary and secondary personas for customer segment prioritization. The primary user persona is:
a non-profit manager either with the underutilized vehicles or without
struggles with the financial burden of car maintenance, gas, and insurance
feels the pressure to guarantee enough work hours to the drivers because they use the vehicles only for a few hours in a day
wishes there is more affordable and reliable transportation option
rather than spending the average of eight hours, figuring out the rides and routes, wants to spend those hours taking care of their members and fulfilling missions
2. Design
Sketches
Sketches
Based on the personas, we were able to identify goals, needs, limitations, and workflow of our primary users that were reflected on the use cases. Then, we sketched our ideas for potential solutions, such as text message service, online forum, charter van rental, social media group, and others.
Wireframes
We intentionally balanced our pace throughout the iterative design process because of our unique customers: non-profit managers and residents in low-income communities who have a higher level of social distrust towards outsiders because of their experience of political corruption and racial discrimination. Therefore, we created the med to high fidelity prototypes to insert in our presentation to the community and quickly get the feedback.
3. Share
Caravan Team Photo with Sneha, Claire, and Kenny (starting from the left) standing in front of a white board with our timeline
Caravan at TechArb Demo Day
People have believed in us! Since April 2017, Caravan has placed 2nd in Ford Go Detroit Challenge, taken a customer discovery course with Jean Redfield at Next Energy, participated in TechArb Student Accelerator Program, and in FREC City Accelerator run by CivicX and the Ford Motor Company Fund (Figure 5). Additionally, we have partnerships with Matrix Human Services, and Focus: HOPE to operate pilot projects.
Icons made by Vector Market from www.flaticon.com
