Friendy Car UX Audit.
Friendy Car, a player in this Egyptian and Dubai car rental market, faced UX hurdles with their app. The project focused on UX audit, usability testing, and some strategic improvements.
Client
Friendy
Country
Egypt
Service
UX Design
Collaborators
Assi&Omar
Year
2023
Context.
A friend of mine asked me to help him rent a car and another friend suggested a rental service called “Friendy Car”. Although the recommendation was to deal with the company offline through their office, my curiosity was piqued and I asked about his experience using their online service.
I enjoy talking to people who face challenges when dealing with online services, so I wanted to learn more about his online experience. Unfortunately, my friend had an unpleasant experience trying to book a car through the app and faced many problems. As a result, I decided to try the service myself to see if I also faced similar issues.
Curiosity.
After personally trying out this service and looking at other apps and marketplaces. I noticed several obstacles that were hindering the growth of the car rental industry in Egypt. This led me to think about how I could assist in improving the industry by helping the only Egyptian online car rental company that already had a large customer base in Egypt and Dubai. To achieve this, I contacted two of the best designers I know to help me come up with ideas on how to help this company grow and improve its product.
Challenges.
In the beginning, we faced many challenges as inexperience in the industry and needing to learn about important aspects like legal regulations, insurance, and daily operations. Attracting users for research was challenging due to customer skepticism towards rental companies. anyway, every journey has to start somewhere.
UX Steps.
We start our journey by gaining a deep understanding of our customer’s behavior and the market by looking at marketplaces, Facebook Groups, Competitors’ apps, and renting websites. We also talk to Matter experts in the field.
Then we decided to conduct a UX audit for efficiency and time management. Following the audit, we focused on usability to ensure that all identified issues were addressed comprehensively and without bias.
UX Audit & Suggestions.
By conducting the audit, we can accurately evaluate the current level of our product’s UX. This will help us identify areas where we can improve and provide our customers with an even better.
Implement a Consistent Style.
There are inconsistencies in design across the app, such as inconsistent buttons, interactions, and lack of feedback status. This can cause a general feeling of distrust in the brand and its position in the market. Therefore, we recommend creating a cohesive style guide to make users feel more confident and trusting.
Incorporate Arabic Language.
Dividing this problem into two main categories, the first one is related to wording: The usage of some terms like “borrower vs owners”, “Click n’ own”, “Pricing on long term” and “weekly discount” may confuse the user while taking action and seems to be hard to understand.
Based on our experience and observations within the renting community, we have identified a second problem, which is the absence of Arabic as the main language.
Therefore, we recommend setting Arabic as the primary language for the company. This is because the company primarily operates in two Arabic-speaking countries where a majority of drivers have limited technical skills and low to mid-level education.
Develop an Intuitive User Onboarding.
Simplify the initial experience for new users with a step-by-step guide. explaining app features and the rental process clearly. A good onboarding experience can significantly reduce drop-offs and increase the number of successful renting orders.
Communication through a Single Platform.
Choose one primary platform, either the app or WhatsApp, for all interactions. Having multiple channels (verifying users in the app and the rest of the process in WhatsApp) can lead to confusion and a fragmented experience. A single, dedicated communication platform ensures a more focused and cohesive renting journey.
Optimize App Navigation with Card Sorting.
The car renting process within the app is currently unclear and not straightforward. It can leave you with multiple questions and the feeling that you may have missed something along the way. To improve this experience, we recommend restructuring the app’s flow to mirror the process of offline car renting. This simple adjustment will reduce confusion and make the renting process hassle-free for new users.
We are not the users. (user testing)
What happened vs What was expected?
We had planned to conduct a usability study for this app with six users. Unfortunately, we were only able to recruit three users due to an issue we discovered when trying to recruit more. It turned out that the company had not refunded the insurance for many potential users and had a bad reputation which made them ineligible to participate.
After conducting two of three usability sessions, we decided to stop the usability. The reason is, that we found out that the app was not ready for testing and had significant problems and bugs, particularly in the sign-in and sign-up process, which prevented our users from starting the testing tasks.
Our first user was quite tech-savvy and was able to work around the issues to complete the designated tasks. However, even though the first user was able to pass the sign-up process, he struggled with the rest of the tasks and was unable to complete them successfully. This was disappointing for the team, especially during the second usability session when our user had trouble with the sign-up process due to issues with the OTP verification.
Despite our best efforts, we were unable to resolve these issues and decided to suspend the study until the app was more stable and ready for testing.