Iomob
As the founding designer, I led the end-to-end design of the product from 0 to 1 and conducted user research that informed a strategic company pivot before landing our first customer.
Mobility
10 months
2019
Key achievements
In 10 months, working together with the founding team, I delivered:
A prototype that secured investor funding for further development.
0 to 1 designed the end-to-end product experience.
Conducted user research that, together with market research, solidified the need to do a strategic pivot.
Designed the first client release, consisting of a rebranded product experience that aligns with the new product vision.
I designed a white-label mobility product from the ground up.
A bit of context
Iomob is a startup building a white-label software solution that enables enterprises specialised in mobility to provide a full customer experience without building and maintaining their own product experience.
By partnering and integrating with mobility partners, the platform allows users to create multi-modal, multi-country trips that consist of different types of transport like taxis, buses, scooters, trains, boats and others.
Iomob is a platform that lets users discover, plan, book, pay for, and complete trips using any mode of transportation, anywhere in the world.
Each need is a challenge
Unlike most competitors who focused on just one part of the travel journey, we saw the need to create a more complete solution that could meet the needs of a wider audience.
Future planning
Currently, planning a multi-city trip that can span several countries where you need to find the right route, book a ticket for each leg of the trip and help guide through the journey requires separate apps.
Multi-modality
No service allows combining a taxi ride with a train ride with a rental scooter within a single trip.
Travel management
There is no single place for keeping tickets because each mobility provider has their own product and disconnected booking process.
Scattered information
Sensitive information like credit card and driver’s license details are scattered around different providers with inconsistent security policies that lack transparency.
Inconsistent quality
While destination discoverability is well designed, the general user experience of mobility provider products leaves a lot to be desired.
There was no single product that would allow a door-to-door travel experience.
Starting with a thesis
The main thesis was that people would prefer using one application instead of several for travelling. This idea can be split into two ideas that we can validate.
To validate, I created a prototype that presented users with a map featuring a semi-curated list of attractions and destinations, easily accessible from the start page.
Explore and discover what is near you
The first thing we can test is if people care about discovering notable places around their location. If a location of interest is found, we can encourage booking a ticket to get there.
Being open to discover places and objects depends on what is the context for travel and the travellers goals.
How to reach the destination?
Once a destination was selected, it was important to understand what types of transport people prefer using. I would learn that this question is contextual and does not come with a single answer.
We guide users to their destination
Upon selecting a destination, users can choose their preferred method of reaching their destination from the available transport options.
We're also encouraging greener choices like e-bikes and public transport by including these options in the explore area and prioritising them in search results.
It is impossible to offer a single option because people are as different as the ways and reasons they travel.
Validating the concept with people in the park
While the concept seemed strong and the team was happy about the direction, it was not clear if this solves a real world need or if people would be open to changing their habits about how they discover attractions, use public transport and what level of trip assistance is expected.
Setting up a clickable prototype.
I created a prototype using Marvelapp because at that point Figma prototypes were very slow when switching between screens. Especially on large files with many variations and noodles.
People found value in the concept
To find travellers, I went to parks in Barcelona. I approached people with the prototype for a quick test and a survey. Over 3 days I managed to get insights from 28 people.
72% found the overall all-in-one concept useful.
The explore feature seemed useful only for tourists while traveling.
Locals found the Explore feature unnecessary and would rather have the ability to plan a future trip and be reminded about them.
Users should be able to exit an active trip and return to it if they need to look for another address.
People wanted to buy tickets from within the app or be directed to the correct service.
The concept enables further exploration
The concept provided insights into what users found valuable and what features we are missing. It also helped the founders to secure the next round of funding to continue developing the product which was a good sign that we are going in the right direction.
This was when we decided to hire an external agency to develop brand guidelines and a marketing message to incorporate into the design.
Simple idea, complex architecture
I designed features to be modular so that we can transition from one feature to another without needing to fit a certain user journey. This was important because there were many entry points which would lead to starting a journey.
Sometimes you need to buy a ticket, sometimes you don't.
Sometimes you open the app mid journey and it would be frustrating if it would not be possible to return to an active trip.
Sometimes you want to buy a ticket without requiring trip guidance.
Sometimes you want to open the ticket without starting a trip.
Mapping out different entry points and how they connect to each feature helped to understand the scope of the app. Engineers would also find it useful because it would visually show how each feature is independent but dependent.
Modular design was key to enabling smooth transitions between different user journeys.
Door-to-door travel?
For the next iteration, we decided to focus on the door-to-door journey as it was becoming one of the main features of the product.
Key things to understand.
Are we providing routes that make sense?
Do people care more about the time or the route?
Do people understand how a multi-modal journey works?
How do people manage the planning and booking of long trips?
In what circumstances would users want to use trip assistance?
Who would be our target audience?
To get more insights, I built a prototype and went to the local parks again.
Observing users interact with a prototype and hearing them describe their experience is an effective way to gather first-hand insights.
92% of people completed all tasks successfully.
Overall, people had a very positive response to the prototype. This round of testing took 4 days and had 33 participants.
Positive findings
85% found it surprising that you can combine multiple types of transports into a single trip.
76% found saving an upcoming trip as a good feature. “It is something to look forward to.”, said one person.
90% were positively surprised about the ability to buy tickets for a future trip without leaving the app. People were expecting to be redirected to a website outside the app.
54% found Trip history useful but would probably not use it often.
Main improvements necessary
80% of people did not immediately understand that it is possible to change the type of transport for a specific leg of the trip.
48% of people would use the guided trip assistance while 90% expect a navigation app to have step-by-step instructions.
3 traveller types emerged
Overall, most people used the app in the intended way. Depending on who the user was, they might have a specific need that the general travel experience did not cover.
The Business traveller
Book a taxi in the same app as the train
A place to collect business travel expenses for reimbursement
The convenience of easily accessible tickets
The frequent traveller
The convenience of easily accessible tickets
Have all mobility providers in one place
Schedule & book a trip in the moment
The Tourist
To plan a multi-city trip later in the year
Buy tickets for the whole trip in one place
Directions to help reach a destination
Pivot in product strategy
The first customer made it clear that the product needs to focus on the planning, booking and trip assistance aspects.
The product is not the star - it is the engine, the infrastructure in the background that allows other mobility providers to be more efficient in delivering their service.
The new focus allowed us to drop the “Explore” feature, which grew in complexity over time yet did not provide a clear path to monetisation.
Our first customer pushed us to focus on the white-label and infrastructure aspects of the product."
The Pilot program
The Pilot program was a way for us to test our product within the clients domain without them making a commitment.
In return, we get to test our product with different types of travellers and learn how to integrate a large mobility provider into our service.
I also was able to get access to the business lounge in Barcelona where I got to conduct user research with business travellers that would serve as they key paying user.
We were looking to learn
What value does our solution offer to frequent travellers?
If there are any missing features?
If users would prefer Iomob or their existing solutions?
How battery-intensive is the trip assistance feature?
We onboarded 80 internal client users who travel daily for work or leisure for 1 month.
Focus on the core product
We had 3 months to finalise and deliver a working Pilot product. We had to cut scope, finalise the designs, finish my research activities and build the release.
Business users are big revenue generators.
The Business user
We got 3 day access to the business lounge of the largest train station in Barcelona to research the high-value business user.
I needed to validate if business users would be willing to change their existing habits and adapt Iomob for their business travel needs.
Participants were intrigued
That they can book a “taxi - train - taxi” combination in a single flow with a single payment.
61% would be willing to switch to Iomob from their existing setup.
18% would consider switching if they can send an invoice to their company.
29% were not willing to switch because the existing habit is strong or because their company arranges travel in a way that doesn’t require additional apps - only navigation.
Habits are very hard to break. Business users were the least likely interested in change unless they gain a real value.
Helping the end user helps everyone
Since travel is a personal experience, we understood that users should be our main guide for what we need to build.
Mobility providers would serve as a constraint and a source for data.
Mobility providers would serve as a constraint to the user experience as they are not technology companies and are not optimised for integrating with third parties.
What is our impact?
Sometimes when partnering with large organisations, some autonomy over the product is lost. We needed to understand and define the value proposition for the product.
For the end user
Find routes, plan trips, purchase tickets and book mobility services within a single app.
Get step-by-step trip assistance to fulfil a door-to-door experience.
Solve the first, last mile problem by providing multi-modal routing.
For mobility providers
Provide a better user experience than existing products without compromising on functionality.
Extend provider capabilities by combining routes from a variety of mobility providers enabling to reach destinations outside their operating area.
Reduce operating and development costs by providing an all-in-one SaaS solution.
Planning a trip
The main action of Iomob is to offer multiple options for any destination.
Results show different multi-modal options where each leg of the trip can be customised.
Leaving an active trip offers a way back to it from anywhere in the app.
Once a trip has been scheduled, it will be available for changes as long as mobility providers have options.
Booking a trip
Users can easily compare available providers for each leg of the trip in a single, unified view.
Buying tickets in the app allows for a central place to keep all receipts. This is important for future trips, where sometimes people have trouble finding their bookings.
“I can buy and keep tickets save tickets here?! Why haven’t I been able to do that up until now?” — A surprised user
Trip assistance
Users appreciate step-by-step guidance for their trips. During travels, users will see relevant information for each leg of the trip.
Depending on the mobility type, it is possible to offer custom functionality. For scooters, it is possible to lock and unlock as well as open the seat for storage.
Public transport, trains and planes would have the option to open the purchased ticket. If a ticket hasn't been purchased and the provider supports the option, it can be bought during a trip.
Final thoughts
When building a product from the ground up, a short feedback loop between the designer, founders, and potential users is very important because it allows to validate product ideas quickly without committing engineering resources.
Stakeholders need to be able to let go of a feature or an idea if initial feedback is not overwhelmingly positive because there is almost no space to build the wrong thing.
When user feedback starts to become repetitive, the designer needs to evaluate the idea or the script for any potential errors. Otherwise, the iteration is ready for polish and implementation.
Sometimes there is only time to focus on the power user but that provides a good baseline for the business to potentially give more time for the team to polish features for the rest of the users.
Users will always surprise you. The more users I interacted with, the more ideas for features and new use cases came up. Not all ideas will be great but they can enrich the board of ideas that stakeholders already have.