Favorite Driver
Even when $1B is at stake, a user-centric designer creates a win-win-win for Drivers, Riders, and Uber.
Uber riders had been requesting this feature for a long time. Citing safety, cool cars, and great experiences with a certain driver…they wanted this feature. On the driver side, Uber saw an opportunity to help drivers grow their business as independent contractors, increase drivers’ safety with trusted riders they know. All of this at a time when several cities and countries were pressuring Uber with lawsuits to do something about driver earnings and safety.
Final MVP design, launched in 2019
Design the Northstar, quickly ship the MVP
Coming out of a design sprint looking at the future of travel, as well as pulling from years of examples of riders asking for this feature, the timing was right for Uber to develop a feature for riders to favorite drivers, and help drivers gain repeat business with quality riders.
Lots and lots of user testing!
User Testing
I’ve always been a huge advocate in the power of design research and user testing. Pulling from years of experience and limited resources from the research team, I developed prototypes to test various options with over a dozen users to help product, eng and design align on the right approach.
Favoriting UX
After auditing all of the possible touch-points for a 1.0 version experience, we settled on the rating screen which was shown to every rider after every trip. This showed great promise through user testing and was the fastest way to get to market quick so we could learn and iterate.
Scheduling UX
On the backend, we would try and match a rider with a favorited driver for an upcoming reservation (scheduled ride).
Driver Pickup UX
The driver would then be prompted with a series of instructions and notifications along the driver journey to the rider’s requested pickup moment.
