Case Study

E-scooter Rewards Program & Magnetic Rack System

Team Members
Susanna Davtyan
Stefan Tabencki
Melody Hagedorn
Yuan Li

My Role
Research
Interviews
Personas
User Journey Map
System Diagram
Ecosystem Infographic
Logo

Client
Santa Monica City

The Challenge

Our challenge was to find a mobility issue in one of the cities of LA. We chose Santa Monica City because it offers a variety of transportation methods. We needed a site specific mobility issue for which we had to find a solution. After 2 days of observations we settled with e-scooters, as they seemed to cause more problems for both users and non-users than other traditional methods of transportation.

Research

We began with desk research and we found out that e-scooters are being vandalized a lot and the companies pay substantial amounts of money to repair them. The main reason for vandalism is that e-scooters do not have designated parking spots and they are tossed on sidewalks and on bike lanes, as well as left in front of private residences, parking garages, and businesses. Residents get frustrated as this can be dangerous for pedestrians, especially during the evening hours. So, we began with a question:

"How might we promote safety and good behavior from people riding them?"

Interviews

The first set of interviews were conducted near Santa Monica Pier. We interviewed tourists and LA residents who were either frequent or occasional scooter users. Later on we interviewed more people to give us even more insights on the benefits of riding scooters and the main pain points.

What we learned:

Riding scooters is fun!

Scooters are great for short distances
They are convenient (leave anywhere and pick up anywhere) and affordable
People prefer Bird scooters over other companies (due to the ease of use)
Scooter users are frustrated by users who don't park them correctly
Sometimes finding a working scooter can take more time than they anticipate
They worry about pedestrian safety
Scooters are not available during late evening hours

Solution

A mobile app and magnetic racks

When our research phase was completed we realized that if we solved the problem for scooter users and got an organized system for e-scooters, we would also solve for residents as they won’t have to deal with tossed scooters in front of their businesses, buildings, and they won't trip on the scooters that are left in the middle of the sidewalks. At this point our challenge shifted from trying to change human behavior to organizing scooters. Our question became:

"How might we organize e-scooters for young professionals in Santa Monica to navigate efficiently?"

As a result, we created E-scooter Rewards App that would encourage users to park at designated Magnetic Racks in order to earn free rides. It is a third-party app that users can go to via the e-scooter apps. Magnetic racks also make it very easy to park without using e-scooter kickstand.

Rack Prototypes

Lo-Fi App Prototypes

Testing the Prototypes

Testing went smoothly. Our users managed to easily park the scooter on the rack following the instructions on the lo-fi app prototype. The feedback we received was related to the number of screens that users had to go through in order to get the reward. Based on this feedback we updated the app prototype and limited the number of screens on the hi-fi app prototype.