Case Study: Lime App — Group Rides

Disclaimer: I am not an employee of Lime and this does not represent the official strategic direction of Lime.

Where it all started?

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I recently used the Citi bikes in NYC. One night my wife and I were biking around Brooklyn and my phone died. At this point, we were almost 2.5 miles from our car and it was getting late. Since we couldn’t rent another bike from her phone, I ended up riding on the back of her bike the whole way back. You can guess that this option was not comfortable or safe but there was no way to rent another bike and we didn’t want to walk.

GoPro footage of our uncomfortable ride

As I thought on this experience I felt like Lime riders may have a similar issue. During this case study, I wanted to explore a way to solve this problem.

The Process

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Research

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Before diving into this problem, I wanted to 1.) find out it if other riders are facing this problem 2.) and understand the implications of the problem 3.) and identify other problems users are facing.

I interviewed 5 people who use Lime scooters on a weekly basis. After this, I started by reading reviews on the app in the app store. This helped me gathered feedback from other Lime riders voicing their struggles.

Apple Store App Reviews

Research Findings:

• Lime riders want the ability to rent multiple scooters for a group on one phone
• In a survey conducted by Lime, results showed that 10% of riders are using scooters for recreation
• Busy Lime riders do not feel confident that a scooter will still be at the location by the time they get there (view this case study)

Discovered uses cases:

• A group of friends wants to go ride scooters together, but one friend’s phone is dead
• A group of friends wants to go ride scooters together, but the payment info doesn’t work on one of the friend’s phones
• A group of friends wants to go ride scooters together, but the data isn’t working on a friends phone so they can’t download the app

The Problem

Lime riders traveling in groups have no way to rent multiple scooters on a single phone

Why solve this problem?

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Solving this problem could help benefit the business and customer:

New Users

By focusing on recreation Lime riders as the target market for this project Lime will be able to provide a better experience for new or potential Lime riders.

Product differentiation

Currently, other Lime competitors such as Bird & Spin do not allow users to rent multiple scooters on one phone.

Ease of use

Helping serve this specific edge cases would create a simple solution for Lime riders looking to ride in groups for recreation.

Persona

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David is a 20-year-old college student studying economics at the University of Washington. He’s a transfer student from a small town Washington. While at school he wants to explore the city with new college friends. Uber an easy way to get around but him and his friends want to discover more in a city on Lime scooters.

David’s Journey Map:

• David and two other friends are looking to explore the best parts of Seattle late Friday night
• David gets on the Lime app to find some scooters close to their apartment
• David and two other friends find a group of Lime scooter on a street corner
• He starts scanning his scooter to rent it for the ride
• David’s friend realizes his phone is 2% and soon the phone dies
• David try to add another scooter to his purchase but the app won’t allow it
• Since his friend can’t get a scooter they decide to call for Uber

Ideation

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I started my ideation process by reviewing the research and brainstorming ideas on a whiteboard.

Brainstorming on the whiteboard

Potential feature solution: Lime riders could rent a certain amount of scooters. The rider would be able to end the ride and lock them up at any point.

Things I considered:

• Should the user be able to turn off this feature?
• How should users be notified about this new feature?
• How many scooters should a user be able to rent?

After brainstorming on the whiteboard I was able to visualize a flow for a Lime rider adding multiple scooters then removing them after their group ride. Then I went into Sketch to build out each screen.

Adding & Deleting Scooters User Flow

Testing the feature

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To gather user feedback on the feature idea, I built out a prototype in Adobe XD and tested it with 5 users.

Prototype 01

Research Findings:

• Users expressed a need for this feature
• Confused with the interaction of ending a scooter ride

I had high hopes that the interaction of ending a scooter ride could be similar to deleting an app on an iPhone. Turns out users were confused and felt it took to many steps.

Deleting apps on IOS

Iteration

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To find a better solution, I did rapid sketching on paper. As I sketched out each flow, I wrote down the pros & cons of the design. I decided on option 3 for a few reasons:

• helps the users visualize the scooters they have rented
• simple findability
• multiple scooters can be rented without taking over the screen real estate

I tested this design in a prototype with 4 Lime riders. Here is what I found:

• Improved findability of ending a scooter ride
• Simplified the flow of ending a scooter ride

During testing I learned about a new consideration:

• What if someone needs to end a ride before the rest of the group?
• How does the Lime rider know which scooter he or she is locking up?
• Is the ID code of the scooter enough information for the user to find which scooter to end?

Potential solution: Allowing users to access the ringer bell on the scooter to find out which scooter they are ending.

To test this idea I build out a prototype. Currently in the process of validating if this is the best solution for solving this use case.

Delete Scooter — User Flow

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