Design Uber for Kids
Comprend the situation; first I'll ask clarifying questions such as:
1) Will parents/care takers be booking rides for a child? Yes
2) Do the kids taking the rides have access to a smartphone? Yes
3) Is this a new service or an extension of Uber? New service
4) How old are the 'kids'? I'm going to assume the ages from 14-18 so no booster seats are needed.
5) I'm going to assume I'm designing with the consumer perspective in mind and not the driver. My solutions will reflect the user experience from the riders perspective.
Identify the customer; to understand who I'm designing for and why I will talk through user personas and some pain points.
1) Single parents who have a hard time balancing pick ups/drop offs for kids
2) Grandparents who don't drive but may be baby sitting kids
3) Parents who have a busy schedule and would like to have a pick up/drop off service for children activities
4) Teenagers who need a ride to their friends place or to a soccer practise
Essentially, there's people of all ages who will use the app to book rides. So I will keep that in mind when designing the app. And, only kids will be taking the ride.
User needs:
1) As a parent or care giver, I want to ensure my child is transported from A to B safely. I want to know when they've reached their destination.
2) As a parent or care giver, I want to know who is transportting my child
3) As a rider (kid), I want to be safely transported
4) As a rider (kid), I want to have a fun ride with games and/or books
5) As a parent or care giver, I want to know whether the driver has a bad driving history OR alternatively can be written as 'I want to ensure my kids driver is a safe driver'
6) As a parent or care giver, I want to be able to schedule rides easily and pre-schedule rides.
To prioritize the user needs, I think 1, 2, 5, and 6 should be prioritized.
User Journey
Registration/signing up -
Care takers: assuming this is a mobile app, care takers and kids have a shared account. When registering, a care taker will fill out their profile (name, address, phone number) and indicate the childs name. For security purposes, the relationship between the care taker and child will be needed. As well as, emergency contact info and medical health info. For example, if an accident were to happen being able to get urgent medical care will be important. During the sign-up process, photos will be required to complete the profile to help identify drivers with riders. This will maximize security. The driver will also be uploading a photo. Care takers will be able to screen profiles of drivers that match their timings for pick up/drop off.
Drivers: when drivers are signing up to drive kids, they'll be a rigid screening process. Drivers will have to upload their driving history as well as insurance history. They'll be a background check. Along with that, drivers professional work history may be required. If a driver has past experience with kids, that will be a plus. Parents/care takers are likely to trust drivers that has prior (good) experience with kids. Along with that, the kind of car the driver drives will be a factor. For example, motorcycles will not be permitted.
Scheduling a ride - for this part of the user journey, scheduling rides will be limited to care takers only and not children. Care takers, will be able to schedule rides in advance and ad hoc. Ideally, care takers can meet the driver beforehand (if possible). The kid will not have permissions to schedule the ride for safety reasons. There will be an option to schedule weekly rides (assuming the driver has the availibiility). We'll prioritize having the same driver drive the kid as this will build a relationship between drivers and care takers. The motivation behind weekly rides will be if the kid has soccer every Monday night or band practise. Location sharing will be available to both drivers and care takers. Care takers will be notified when their kid is picked up and dropped off automatically through the app. The child will be able to rate their ride (similar to the Uber experience today).
During the ride - When the driver arrives for pick up, to confirm the passenger, facial recognition can be used to maximize security. This helps ensure the driver is transporting the right kids. Locations will be live throughout the ride for the care taker. To provide a safety precaution, kid will be able to send a SOS signal to their care taker if anything feels uncomfortable. At that moment, Uber will also be notified and suspend the ride. The care taker will be informed and will be asked to meet the kid and the driver. During the ride, the driver will follow a check-list for when picking up the kid. The checklist would include: checking whether the kid has its seat belt on, whether the location they're going to is the same as the desired location, and ensuring the child has its care takers permission to take the ride (that's a given but sometimes kids take their parents phone and use it for their own purposes).
After the ride care taker will be notified when their kid is dropped off. A picture can be taken as the kid leaves the vehicle and the kid will rate their experience. The driver will notify the care taker about how the ride went and provide details regarding drop off. Where they dropped the kid off. Care taker will be able to rate the quality of feedback the driver provides for other customers.
Extension we can build a partnership between drivers and care takers. For example, sign up for a monthly program where the same driver drives the kid to soccer practise every week. This will help build a trusting relationship.
To summarize safety will be the number one aspect of the app. Providing a way to track location and safety of the passenger is important. The service will help identify types of drivers and will screen drivers beforehand. The app will only be available to care takers to schedule rides but for the kids, they'll have a different UI to communicate with their care taker with. For example, being able to send their care taker a message when they've reached their destination or communicate that they're in danger.
Before launching the app, I would first understand the needs of customers. Is this something that customers would use? How often would they use it? How would they want the service to work? Who are they expecting to trust when transporting their kid? After understanding that the Go-To market strategy will be targetting a small user group first to validate the service, UI design and customer experience and measuring success. Metrics would include number of sign ups, number of rides taken, satisfaction of service/safety and driver dependability.
For which market to target - it would be a small city where the population of kids is high. Suburban areas would make sense.
