Mobile Error Reporting

Improving the error reporting process for a public bikes app
nextprojectsitycleta
Problem Statement
When an issue arises, users face a lot of uncertainty and frustration around; reporting an issue, how/when that report will be processed, and their account.
Objectives & Goals
Improve the error report flow usability, to allow faster, clearer reports
Improve the user experience around error reporting to entice more reports
Business Challenges
The service is a mix of digital and physical/mechanical
Wide range of potential errors that can occur
Working with many different languages
Product Users
Local Residents - (Mostly aged 16-35)
Tourists - (10-25% of user base)

The Project

With a market opportunity to develop a SaaS product, we began an iterative process alongside two 2 clients to build an embedded white label SaaS version of our product on their own website.

The Target Audience

Leaders of Web3 ecosystems, the companies within their ecosystems (mostly early-stage startups), and the talent that they would attract (mostly developers).

The Goal

To re-create the experience and benefits of the HireVibes app via a branded iFrame embedded into a client's website.

My Role

Sole designer producing prototypes and first point of contact for testing with clients and gathering feedback on features. Worked alongside dev team & product manager.

The Impact

44% increase in talent pool during updates and a 3.4X increase, 6 months after launch.
Personal Research
Before conducting my research, my main inspiration for this project was my exerience of being an active user of the product.
Online Survey & Reviews
I had discussed Sitycleta many times with friends and peers, however, I also decide to reach out to some local Slack groups and gather more feedback on their experiences. I also looked at the reviews that people had shared on the official App Store.
Competitive Benchmarking
I downloaded some other popular bike rental apps, to see what the standard models were in other cities. Nextbike for example is supposed to be used in conjunction with Sitycleta, so users of Nextbike don't need to download the Sitycleta app when in Las Palmas. However, the navigation, search, and rental features are vastly different from that of the Sitycleta app,
Usability Testing
Fortunately for me (not for my friend), I was able to observe the issuance of a report in real-time. My friend made an error when unlocking a bike on a journey home and needed to log a report for the app to function again and return the ability to rent a bike.
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As it was part of a journey we were taking together, I was able to share in her frustration as we walked home, waiting for the report to be resolved for the rental function to become active again.
Insights
  • Users would issue a report more if they felt there was a risk of their journey not being logged properly
  • Users were not given many instructions as to what to do or expect when returning bikes
  • Users were not given many instructions as to what to do or expect when returning bikes
  • Users were not giving insight into the status of their issue, or what/when to expect a resolution
  • Users were unaware of any cost that may be incurred, when, or why.
  • The communication switched between Spanish and English at different times and when making a report users can only assume that the message will be understood, in either language.
  • German language speakers were a majority of users reporting problems around using the app.
  • Negative emotions were most frequently highlighted around not knowing, or the user having to make assumptions
  • Users were unsure or guessing at several stages of the process
  • Most issues were reported when returning the bikes, and most negative emotions around the time/cost
  • Users had low expectations of service, some gave up on it easily
  • Errors happened more often with the software than with the bike
User Journey Map
I created a simple user journey map, to further clarify where in the process users were finding the most issues, and how it may impact other areas or their experiences as a whole.
Opportunities
Report options: Improve app consistency and include features to aid reporting
Improve Feedback: Let the user know they have successfully done the right thing
Post-Report: Logging the report, what comes next, account/balance, resolution, etc.
New Designs
At this point I began sketching some initial ideas for screens, going through a few iterations to map out the elements and interactions that would lead the user through the flow, addressing issues highlighted during my research.
Report Options
I began with the report a problem screen. Initially, we can see that we have three areas with little info or context and plenty of space for both.
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With plenty of space on this screen, I added some brief but important points of info at the bottom, to give some expectations and clarity around the report process.

I also added a reminder state, should someone report a problem, and return to this screen before resolved.
Before
After
After (Report already issued)
New Report Flow
  • I expanded the options and also added some spacing to the options as ticking the boxes and arrows in this tight list was not always correct first try and the alignment of the elements was visually confusing
  • I added a 'not sure' option. Perhaps users are having a problem, but don't know the cause. At least in this instance, their report will still direct the employee to investigate the bike, and not to wonder if it is a station, software or mistakenly issued report
  • I updated the text to English bike vocabulary. The app is correctly translated in every other area, except for here when it is the most challenging choice of vocabulary, it had been neglected.
  • The map functioned well in other areas of the app so I included it here also. I also included the QR scan option from the home page, as users can scan the QR code at the station to confirm which one they are at.
Report Sent
Currently, a very vague notification was appearing at the bottom of the screen, away from the content of the screen. This could be easily missed and so I have updated this message to be more visible and helpful.

The user was also being redirected back to the report a problem page as if after a successfully issued report they would need to report another.

Any change to the sent message would now appear on the journey screen where the user would be redirected, having sent the necessary report.
Before
After
Report Progress
As another reminder, as well as a point of reference after a report has been issued, once a report has been issued during a journey, the journey page will now display a banner, letting them know that the report has been sent and is still unresolved.

When a journey ends, the journey page is no longer visible and the user is directed to see the "Rent a bike" home page as normal. When logic tells the app that the previous journey has closed and redirects theuser to this page, it should now track to see that the previous journey had a report issued and a banner should appear confirming this. This banner should disappear after 3 seconds.

Finally, I have suggested a Report History page. To reduce dev resources, it would appear similar to the Rental History page as is currently available on the app and would display only the data points requested in the Report Problem flow.
Report - In Progress
Report Resolved
Report History

The Impact

During the weeks in which we were making the changes, Stacks reported that the talent pool went from 191 members to 275 members. Although this meant an increase of 44%, the user base and pool were still quite small overall.

6 months later, the talent pool reached 935 members, meaning a 3.4X increase. This is only made more significant as the crypto industry was going through a significant bear market at this time.

44%

increase during updates

3.4 X

increase 6 months later

Conclusion

In working with blockchain ecosystems, we will be able to refine our understanding of how they are using our platform and how ecosystems like these are hiring.
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By powering the profiles on our backend, the scaling of the client's ecosystem in turn increases our database of talent and jobs. Improving this product and onboarding more ecosystems can exponentially grow our core product as well as revenue.
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As we continue to gather feedback from clients, some potential updates in our roadmap include:

  • Enable referrals via the client's embed page
  • Add more customisable features, eg. inherit font and other design elements from the client's website page
  • Integrations such as Zapier can allow ecosystems to tap into their current workflow. Auto-posting new jobs to ecosystem Discord or Slack channels etc.

You can see the HireVibes Talent Portal live at: www.stacks.co/jobs

Updating jobseeker list to improve talent searching process

Overview

Living in Las Palmas and being a member of the public bike rental scheme "Sitycleta" for 7 months, provided me with lots of experiences of the highs and lows of using the public bike systems. With a variety of issues experienced throughout the entire user journey, I wanted to highlight and iterate on the one area that I thought could have the most impact on the overall cohesion of the system.

Scope & Constraints

Living

Research

Being

Design

Being

Validation

Being

Outcomes & Results

Being

Lessons Learned / Future Iterations

Being a foreigner in Las Palmas, my experience may be quite different to locals who equal over 90% of the population. My network is distributed heavier towards English speakers, so of the people I spoke to during my research, many were also foreigners. This is of course, not an accurate representation of the largest sector of users, and I feel this would negatively impact the validity of my results.

Implementing Smart Contract functionality into the HireVibes app

Overview

Living in Las Palmas and being a member of the public bike rental scheme "Sitycleta" for 7 months, provided me with lots of experiences of the highs and lows of using the public bike systems. With a variety of issues experienced throughout the entire user journey, I wanted to highlight and iterate on the one area that I thought could have the most impact on the overall cohesion of the system.

Scope & Constraints

Living

Research

Being

Design

Being

Validation

Being

Outcomes & Results

Being

Lessons Learned / Future Iterations

Being a foreigner in Las Palmas, my experience may be quite different to locals who equal over 90% of the population. My network is distributed heavier towards English speakers, so of the people I spoke to during my research, many were also foreigners. This is of course, not an accurate representation of the largest sector of users, and I feel this would negatively impact the validity of my results.

Building ATS integrations into the HireVibes app

Overview

Living in Las Palmas and being a member of the public bike rental scheme "Sitycleta" for 7 months, provided me with lots of experiences of the highs and lows of using the public bike systems. With a variety of issues experienced throughout the entire user journey, I wanted to highlight and iterate on the one area that I thought could have the most impact on the overall cohesion of the system.

Scope & Constraints

Living

Research

Being

Design

Being

Validation

Being

Outcomes & Results

Being

Lessons Learned / Future Iterations

Being a foreigner in Las Palmas, my experience may be quite different to locals who equal over 90% of the population. My network is distributed heavier towards English speakers, so of the people I spoke to during my research, many were also foreigners. This is of course, not an accurate representation of the largest sector of users, and I feel this would negatively impact the validity of my results.

Thanks for reading!

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