Uber for moving: personal moving business model & mobile app

OCT 2015

Overview

I participated in Carnegie Mellon's Hackathon and created an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) with developers and MBAs under 36 hours: an iOS app that makes moving large items easier.

I created everything design-related: from user-flow, UI design, to the functional prototype. I also introduced design thinking to the team, which was a new concept for the rest of my team. With my team, I contributed to establishing the business model, making the survey, and interviewing users.

MY ROLE

UX Designer

User Researcher

Visual Designer

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METHODS

Survey & Interviews

Paper prototyping

Guerilla Testing

Hallway Testing

TECHNOLOGIES

InVision

Illustrator

Sketch

Problem

Moving is a messy errand — it is time and labor consuming. Current moving services ask you to do everything yourself and tend to cost an arm and a leg. In the meantime, people who have larger vehicles have their cars available sometimes and can be used as a money-making tool.

So how can we build a business that makes moving easier for people?

Process

Through these research, we learned that...

• 90% of the people surveyed had moved large-size items in the past year

• Current pain points for customers include inaccurate delivery time, damaged goods, lack of communication with the moving stuff

• Existing options like Uber and Lyft either do not allow moving of large items, or fail to match people's expectation for size needed

• Some companies offer moving services, but usually require early appointments and ask users themselves to drive.

• People feel awkward asking friends to help do such errands, and are willing to pay for the service

Design Iterations

Understanding our users, we decided to create WeHaul, an instant moving business. I made several iterations of the app and conducted hallway usability testing between each time, and created all visual assets.

       For example, I made the following design changes, balancing technical and business needs.

• Provide function to schedule rides for later

• Allow uploading photos with reference with simple objects (pencils, credit cards, fruits etc) to provide approximate sizes of the item

• Add feedback to notify that a request has been sent

Some paper prototype examples from the sleepless Hack-a-thon

Prototypes in InVision

Solution

Try it out in the interactive prototype!

Reflection

What I enjoyed most

• Bringing design thinking into the team

• Working with developers and business people collaboratively 

• Being on a small and fast-moving team

A Small Hiccup

• Midway through the hackathon, my computer stopped working 😨

• I ended up sharing a computer with a teammate, who did not have any design software. So I "hacked" together the prototype with PowerPoint 😄

What I have learned

• When working on MVP, getting things done is more important than getting them perfect the first time

• Being Agile: Design fast, test fast, adapt fast.

What could've been better

• Make sure devices are in good condition ahead of time

• Spend more time on the presentation itself, elaborating its business values

• More testing

Team

From left to right: Anisha Kaul, Kinjal Das, Inbasagar Ganapathy, Rahul Nallamothu, Brenden Van Buren, me

P.S. Because we had a great time working together, I was reached out by my teammates for new design projects one year after the hack-a-thon! 👩‍💻