Samanvay's Design Portfolio

Yulu: Service Design & Dashboard Design

Two wheels, one click: Redefining YULU bike's customer experience by innovation with a customer-centric approach.

Overview

This case study is part of a bigger group project that aimed to explore EV public transportation services in Bengaluru, where I focused on the Yulu service. Yulu is a privately owned public transportation low-speed 2-wheeler EV service. The service is conceived as a ‘flexible, cheap, effective, and clean commuting’ alternative to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Its EVs are primarily used by food delivery partners and people commuting through traffic in the city. The company has an app that allows users to search for the nearest bike station, scan the QR code on the bike, ride the bike anywhere and end the journey at any bike station. Yulu has a presence in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Delhi, Gurugram and Kochi.

Problem Statement

Business problem statement:

“How can the EV public transportation services be improved to inspire more people to use these services. The aim is to work towards a more sustainable future by adopting the use of environment-friendly technologies.”

Research problem statement:

“Analyze the services, systems, and infrastructure of the EV public transportation ecosystem in Bengaluru to identify gaps and provide solutions to bridge these gaps.”

Business problem statement:

Research problem statement:

“Analyze the services, systems, and infrastructure of the EV public transportation ecosystem in Bengaluru to identify gaps and provide solutions to bridge these gaps.”

What I understand:

Understand the users and audience
- Their behaviours
- Their problems
- Factors that influence their decisions
End goal
- Identify different services
- Pick one service for yourself
- Help the businesses improve
- Help users in an efficient way

What I understand:

Understand the users and audience
- Their behaviours
- Their problems
- Factors that influence their decisions
End goal
- Identify different services
- Pick one service for yourself
- Help the businesses improve
- Help users in an efficient way

Process

Research

Research Questions

What are the different types of services we’re covering?
Who are the users?
What’s the incentive to use these vehicles?
What affects the decision for them to use these vehicles?
What features in the current service do they like or dislike?
How can the gaps in service be identified first and then how to fill those gaps to help both the users and the business?

Research Questions

What are the different types of services we’re covering?
Who are the users?
What’s the incentive to use these vehicles?
What affects the decision for them to use these vehicles?
What features in the current service do they like or dislike?
How can the gaps in service be identified first and then how to fill those gaps to help both the users and the business?

Secondary Research

Stakeholder Mapping

All the different stakeholders were identified through online research. It was important to identify all stakeholders as equal and not label anyone key to include groups who are always neglected. For example, maintenance and support staff in Yulu bikes.

Secondary Research

Stakeholder Mapping

Ecosystem Mapping

To understand the ecosystem, a map was build where, entities part of common themes are inside the same circle. Ecosystem maps help in making all the connections visible, so it’s easier to see all the connections and easier to make decisions based on the connections that those decisions will affect.

Ecosystem Mapping

Primary Research

Contextual enquiry and interview

Contextual enquiry was used as a tool of observation to understand the user behaviors and their psyche. It helps in understanding the context of the problem first hand without any biases or loss of information. The location for the contextual enquiry was a Yulu zone at Indiranagar, where Yulu bike was used and tested by travelling to nearby Yulu zones. 10 users were identified for interview who were operating YULU bikes near their parking stations, 5 delivery partners and 5 casual users, to understand the challenges faced by them while using this service.

Interview Questions

How often do you use this service?
For what purpose is this service used?
Estimated distance travelled in one use?
Any challenges faced while riding this bike?
Any challenges faced while searching for charging or parking zones?
Any suggestions for improvement?

Key Insights

Difficult and unsafe to navigate with maps, because there is no dashboard display
3 levels for battery on bike display are unreliable
User’s are not able to identify when the battery will discharge

Primary Research

Contextual enquiry and interview

Interview Questions

How often do you use this service?
For what purpose is this service used?
Estimated distance travelled in one use?
Any challenges faced while riding this bike?
Any challenges faced while searching for charging or parking zones?
Any suggestions for improvement?

Key Insights

Difficult and unsafe to navigate with maps, because there is no dashboard display
3 levels for battery on bike display are unreliable
User’s are not able to identify when the battery will discharge

User Personas

User Personas represent each different user set and help data to be organized into a format that is easily interpreted.

Customer Journey Map Service Blueprint

Service blueprint is a diagram that displays the entire process of service delivery, highlighting processes at different stages and the different roles involved. Following is a customer journey map blueprint which shows interaction involving the customer and the service with actions. Frontstage actions highlight interaction between customer and service, while backstage actions highlight interaction within the service and they are able to function due to support processes.

Pattern language is a set of vocabulary which helps represent the nature of each action to the stakeholders and the customer.

Battery Delivery Executive Service Blueprint

This service blueprint shows the journey of a delivery executive, who delivers battery to the user who has depleted battery in the middle of a ride. We get a closer look at different steps and processes involved in this blueprint, which helps us solve this problem altogether.

Design

To tackle with the issues involved, a dashboard design was made which could be fitted into the handle of the bike. This dashboard would allow user to check maps as well as proper battery level while driving with sound and visual based notification saying battery is low, when battery is below 10%.

Wireframes

Solution

Unlock and Home Screen

After scanning the QR code through the app, the user can simply touch the unlock button to unlock the brakes. The home screen appears which allows the user to see important information like ride time, battery percentage, location of the bike and Yulu charging and parking stations. The dashboard prevents users from using their phone while riding which improves their experience while riding also ensuring user safety.

Unlock and Home Screen

Search Location and Pause Ride

Search option at the top has a placeholder text "where to" , that prompts the user to search location. When the location is typed in, on the right hand user can see distance from current location. Pause ride option allows user to pause the ride in multiples of 10 minutes that halves the amount spent when bike is not running.

Search Location and Pause Ride

Find Yulu Zone and Charging Station

Both the options are present in the top right side of the screen. When clicked, a horizontal scroll overlay opens which allows user to choose from nearest parking or charging zones.

Find Yulu Zone and Charging Station

Both the options are present in the top right side of the screen. When clicked, a horizontal scroll overlay opens which allows user to choose from nearest parking or charging zones.

Low Battery and End Ride

When the bike has less than 10% battery left, it gives a audio notification and a visual notification on screen to either charge the bike or change it at a parking station. This particularly solves the issue where earlier users didn't know how much battery % was left and had distance anxiety and prevents the bike from suddenly going out of charge while riding.

Low Battery and End Ride

My Learnings

Working on this project was very new and exciting experience for me, as I had never worked on a service design problem. Through this project I learned a lot of things like organizing ecosystems, systems and analyzing infrastructure behind the services. Service blueprint and pattern language were also a concept very new to me and it helped me understand different complex processes which go behind every service design and how to make them better. What I loved most about this project was that, I got to broaden my perspective by looking at complex design problems and found new ways to tackle with those problems.

My Learnings