Design Lyft for deaf drivers.

Question

Design Lyft for deaf drivers.

Asked at Lyft over a year ago

1.4k views

Product Design category

& 2 other companies

Asked at

& 2 other companies

1.4k views

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kuma0177 · Answer 1 · 2020-04-06T03:50:38+0000

Goal: To allow deaf drivers to conveniently pick up and drop off passengers efficiently and delightfully and thus get good Lyft ratings.

Users

Drivers (deaf): Drivers who can’t hear partially or fully. Might also not be able to speak due to their inability to speak
Passengers - Regular passengers that are hailing various types of Lyft rides like shared, regular lyft

Problems faced by deaf drivers in regards to ride-hailing

Communication
1. Can’t talk to riders while picking them up, can’t communicate while driving where a rider may be asked to pick up at a different location, dropped off at a specific location or adjust their ride or co-ordinate across the pool riders.
Locating
1. Can’t hear notifications that Lyft might send to drivers to inform about the new rides

Feature Ideas for drivers:

Driver Texter
1. Drivers can text passengers before arrival indicating to passengers their disability and request them of their patience. Lyft can also explicitly inform that their driver is challenged to set rider expectations. Passengers will get a notification when their ride is confirmed that their driver has a disability and the best way to communicate would be via SMS and not call.
2. In-car messager - If a user wants to be dropped off at a different then they can send either brief custom messages asking the driver to drop them at a different place. Driver's phone will vibrate on getting messages from the passeneger and screen will blink for a few seconds to get the driver's attention.

CarSpotter - Passenger can spot the car using a bright color blinker and car’s license plate number.
Sign language translator - Instead of sending a complex text message, the app wil translate to sign language that a driver can easily read and make the decision.

Prioritization

In order to prioritize these features, I will evaluate along the dimensions of eng cost and impact on UX as the main dimensions and evaluate the ROI and impact on the product goal.

CarSpotter - it already exists as a beacon app in Lyft right now.

Sign Language Translator - This is a hard problem to solve since you need to take unstructured text in sland or misspellings and convert them to ASL. The technical cost is quite high. The impact on rider may not be that high since it improves communication received mostly by the driver and not facilitate 2 way communication.

Driver Texter - It will solve really key problems for the driver and manager UX on both sides of the marketplace. Technically it is not hard to implement given there is already a messaging functionality in Lyft and thus impact on UX is quite high for minimal engineering work.

Thus, I will prioritize driver texter as the main feature.

Success

In order to evaluate the success of this, I will pick the following metrics and run an a/b test to understand the impact on driver, riders, and lyft’s business:

Drivers: DAU and WAU of deaf drivers, # of rides accepter per deaf driver, average rating per deaf driver.
Riders: DAU and WAU of riders who were matched with deaf drivers, # of rides taken per user
Lyft - Average revenue generate for deaf driver per week (segmented by cities)

ZMCL Product · Answer 2 · 2020-04-08T12:54:46+0000

Goal: provide a solution for Lyft deaf drivers so that they can pick and drop passengers conveniently and hassle-free and get a good rating from the passengers and could make a mark in the Lyft drivers community.

Assumptions: As per the question, I am assuming that the drivers are deaf (who can’t hear fully or partially and can’t speak normally) only not fully dump and deaf.

User Persona

Drivers:

1. Deaf who can’t hear fully or partially also can speak a little bit but not as normal people.

2. Knows driving and has licensed to drive individually and with other people and work as Lyft driver.

Passengers:

1. Regular passengers who use Lyft for traveling frequently.

2. Use personal ride, share the ride.

User Pain Point

Drivers: As the driver is Deaf. Below is some pain point.

1. Not able to hear and know Lyft notification about the new ride.

2. Whenever a ride is assigned to the driver. He is not able to talk to riders while picking up.

3. Can’t able to get ride OTP from the passengers, without OTP he is not able to know about dropping points.

4. Can’t able to communicate about the organization of ride to the passengers in the shared ride.

Passengers

1. Not able to communicate and make the driver understand about the journey (including pickup point, OTP, drop point, etc.).

2. Not able to communicate and make the driver understand if the passenger wants to be dropped off at another location.

Prerequisite: As I am not focusing too much on how the driver knows about the notification and assuming that the device (mobile and another device) the driver using is always in front of the driver and driver must always have an eye on the device. Or

Lyft can create a device (like a wrist band and anything) associated with the device (mobile and another device) the driver using via Bluetooth and vibrate every time when the notification comes. (not considering right now)

Solutions/Ideas

1. Text Messenger

Explanation: Text Messenger can help and could be a medium of communication between driver and passenger if and the driver is deaf.

Whenever a passenger books a ride a notification should always send about the disability of the driver if the driver is deaf along with the OTP, Driver name and cab number and with the text option to the driver rather than a call option.

As the driver is deaf and not able to talk to the passenger can communicate over messenger by texting the passenger. Where he can ask about the pickup point, OTP and Drop point and other required information.

Passenger can also communicate over messenger by texting to the driver if he/she wants to change their drop location or want to drop another location (somewhere before dropping point) without changing drop location.

Pros: Text messenger could be a possible solution as not much communication (required to make a successful ride) happens between driver and passenger in normal ride except pickup point, OTP and drop off point.

From engineering cost, ROI perspective it is easy to implement as most of the cab service provider companies already has their own messaging functionality.

Cons: To use messenger by the driver while driving could be the risk of its own life also the passenger life. Especially for the shared ride as in shared-ride drivers must communicate more than one passenger.

2. Chat Bot

Explanation: Artificial intelligent (AI) chatbot could be a possible solution and could also resolve the cons of text messenger solution.

The chatbot can have some predefined questions required to make a ride successful. Like what is the pickup point, what is the OTP and What is the drop location.

Whenever a passenger books a ride chatbot comes in action if the driver is deaf send information about the disability of the driver, along with the OTP, driver's name and cab number and ask to use the text/voice chat option to communicate the driver rather than a call option.

The chatbot could also be associated with the map so that after analyzing the pickup point suggest(if required) nearest pickup point to the passenger for the convenience of the driver and to avoid multiple communication to pick the passenger for example, rather than picking up from home and office passenger can come nearest popular pickup point.

Pros: Chatbot will end the direct intervention of the driver to communicate with the passenger and help the driver to more focus on driving.

The chatbot will also manage the shared ride to communicate the passenger either individually or could create a group chat within the passengers to manage share ride based on different scenarios.

Cons: Most cab service providers already have messaging functionality and Chatbot required additional Implementing cost. and need to take ROI into consideration.

Priorities

Here I prioritize my solution based on risk analysis, implementation cost, effort, and ROI.

Text Messenger: Although implementing cost and effort is little or negligible as most cab service provider already have messaging functionality and company could except some better ROI as the implementing cost is little or negligible but to use of text messenger by the driver while drive includes high risk (Risk of life).

Chat Bot: Although Chatbot required additional implementation cost and effort. But reduce the risk. Also, can help the driver and passenger to make the ride move convenient and hassle-free. ROI would also come after some time if chatbot functionality started working.

Also, the company can enter new technology and can see further incremental functionality and future in technology.

So, I would like to implement a chatbot solution as it lowers the risk while driving and would be impact full in the near future.

User Story using Chatbot solution

Prerequisite: Assuming the device is always in front of the driver somewhere on the car's dashboard and the driver must always have an eye on the device.

Passenger End:

1. Passenger books a ride form the Lyft app.

2. Passenger gets the notification about the confirmation of the ride along with the OTP, Driver's name, Cab number and information about the disability of the driver and comes to know that passenger is communicating with the chatbot.

3. Communication with chatbot starts, chatbot suggests the passenger if he comes to the nearest popular pickup point (if available and required) for the convenience of the driver as the driver is disabled after analyzing his current pickup point.

4. Passenger board the cab after reaching the cab on pick up point.

5. For shared-ride chatbot start a group chat with the passenger and update the passenger about their ride and destination based on the different scenarios (not discussing here).

6. If passenger changes the drop location from the Lyft app. Lyft notification system will send the notification to the chatbot and chatbot will confirm the same with the passenger. And the location will be changed on the map also.

Driver End:

1. The Chat screen will open on the driver’s device screen whenever a ride is assigning to the driver.

2. The driver gets the OTP, Pick Up point on the chatbot screen.

3. The driver reaches the pickup point and enters the OPT and gets the drop location of the passenger.

4. Ride Start

5. If passenger changes the drop location from the Lyft app. Lyft notification system will send the notification to the chatbot, which is open on the driver device and chatbot will confirm the same with the passenger. And the location will be changed on the map also.

6. There will be two screens on driver device one is map with drop location and the second one is chatbot chat screen. the driver could switch any of the screens as requires.

Success Metrics

Driver

1. % of DAU and MAU of the deaf driver.

2. Average ride accepted by per deaf driver in per day.

3. Average rating of the deaf drivers

Passenger

1. The average rating given by the passenger to the deaf driver.

2. Average ride accepted by the passenger with deaf driver in per day

Business

1. Average revenue generated by the deaf driver in a week/month

North Star Metrics

Average ride accepted by per deaf driver in per day – aligned with the goal