UX Discovery Phase: Usability and Functionality

A QUICK GUIDE TO PRODUCT DESIGN FROM THE OPINOV8 DESIGN TEAM

When it comes to generating a new project, service, product, or feature, you need to know that in today’s world, a good idea and execution aren’t enough. Your idea needs to rest on a solid foundation and is desirable for users, technically feasible, and commercially viable to help companies reduce any problems that might be occurring down the road.  

Almost any design cycle starts with a discovery phase, which is instrumental in setting the project off in the right direction. The UX discovery process is a key phase in every project that involves product development.  

This is a critical part of Opinov8’s UX/UI design services that helps us to provide a flawless user experience. In this article, we will share key details about the UX discovery phase and feature ideation during our development of an advanced electric scooter rental app for City Ride. 

Step-by-step guide through a UX Discovery Phase

The key concept idea was to create an app for renting electric scooters, but with the additional condition that the app should be useful, interactive, and enjoyable. We decided to begin with a Discovery stage to fulfill an outstanding user experience and ideate a functionality to make the target audience users switch to our application. 

1. Market research, competitors' analysis, and outcomes 

To develop the optimal scooter rental app, our team first conducted market research and competitor analysis to determine this niche market’s general trends and features. Most apps in this space are focused exclusively on rental and payment tasks. None of the competitive apps offered additional features or innovations. This omission provided a golden opportunity for City Ride’s app to stand out functionally from the rest of the market by introducing advanced features while maintaining the app’s usefulness and simplicity. Another key theme was to encourage tourists to rent scooters. Cycling tourism is already well established, enabling renters to visit tourist attractions or become better acquainted with a city along their selected routes. Although still in the developmental stage, electric scooter tourism is growing. 

After studying the market in greater detail, our team concluded that the tourism concept offered enough advantages to succeed. Every big city has notable sights, but it often takes a lot of time to travel between them. Taxis are not affordable for everyone, and bus tours operate on set schedules and can be crowded. Electric scooter rentals provide a perfect solution, empowering independent tourism by offering speed, freedom, and accessibility.  

Keep reading: What is User Experience and why is it important

2. User interviews, pain points study, and feature ideation 

To develop this concept, we conducted user interviews to discover how potential customers use similar apps in real life. During the focus group interviews, we uncovered key pain points and brainstormed potential solutions to develop a unique set of functionalities that would enable the app to meet all the basic rental requirements as well as enhance the renter’s user experience. 

“We must understand for whom we were creating this product to make it as relevant as possible to the audience’s needs and not create unnecessary difficulties for them.” — Olga Shepelenko, UX/UI designer. 

Based on our interviews, we found that when using a rental application, many users switch away from the rental app to their phone’s map app for navigation purposes. We proposed embedding a navigator in the City Ride rental app that would guide users without this inconvenience. When a user selects a destination on the app’s map, the app determines the best route. The user can place the phone in a holder attached to the steering wheel. This novel feature enables users to follow their route on the app’s map.  

But we did not stop there. We added an option to choose an audio sightseeing tour on the route, taking into consideration both distance and planned time. We also included a section with bonuses and promotional codes to enhance client retention and loyalty. Users can collect points for specific achievements, such as the number of kilometers traveled, reporting a malfunction, or recommending the application to friends.  

“When working with functionality, it is important to clarify that we have a list of necessary functions that are inherent in all applications in this niche, without which the application could not fulfill its main goal, as well as a list of recommended functions that could improve and improve our application.” — Yuliya Guseva UX Designer.

3. Concepting 

We created a concept that would correspond to the conditions in which the user would access it. To deal with this task, we decided to use a light theme with contrasting colors. This decision is justified by the fact that when using the application outdoors in sunlight, the visibility of the screen can be significantly reduced, and due to the light background and the contrast of the elements, the user would not have problems with the visibility of the interface. 

One of our innovations in the interface of the electric scooter rental application is the screen during the trip in 2 modes. One of them displays the user's position on the map and his movement. And the second mode is presented as a real-time trip, where the person can check the route by following the image and the guiding arrows on the screen. These solutions are, at the same time, quite perceptible and allow the user to explore different possibilities. 

Outcomes 

When designing the app, we included both essential rental and payment functionality and killer features to distinguish it from competitors in the electric scooter rental market. Our UX research identified weaknesses in competing applications, and we analyzed user experience to identify functional problems and opportunities to add novel features. Our solution makes it possible to attract new users to the application — both locals using scooters for daily transportation as well as tourists and other visitors. With this in mind, City Ride would stand out from the competition and be in high demand. We also ensured that the proposed ideas would be easy to implement, enhancing further development and speeding up time to market. 

 May interest you: City Ride | Nominated to UX Design Awards

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