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There is very little English documentation on the internet about the UI/UX scene in China, perhaps due to language and technical barrier. As a bilingual, I am happy to share my journey after exploring the scene.
I had the opportunity to participate in an online bootcamp on designing for active user growth for Didi Bike, one of China’s major players in the bike sharing scene. The project lasted 4 weeks and I worked along with my trusty teammates, 橙子, 雅雅, 许建林 & 阿威. Below is our condensed report.
Toolkit –
Pen, Paper, AARRR Pirate Metrics Framework, Business Model Canvas, Adobe XD
UX Techniques-
PEST Analysis, Business Goals Analysis, Empathy Map, Personas, POVs, HMWs, User Stores, User Flow, Information Architecture. Interaction Design, Interface Design.
Bike Sharing in 2015: Mobike VS OFO
Bike Sharing Scene Background
A quick intro into China’s bike sharing scene, the competition with just 2 companies in 2015, Mobike, and Ofo. With an affordable deposit and pay-by-distance model to help with users short-distance commuting requirements, they gained instant recognition and their business models were quickly replicated by many. By 2016 it had reached the industry peak, where there’s more than 20 companies offering the similar services. Users were spoilt for choice and the overcrowding of idle bikes soon caused social issues. Companies went bankrupt or were bought over by competing companies, causing users great confusion, and with their non-returnable deposits, ditched bike-sharing entirely.
Bike Sharing in 2016: >20 platforms emerged
This overwhelming situation finally evolved to become 3 major players by 2020, Meituan Bike (bought over Mobike entirely), HelloBike (parented by Alibaba), and DidiBike (an extension service from Didi, the Uber of China)
Bike Sharing in 2020: 3 major players DiDi Bike, Hello and Meituan
UX Approach
As we were formulating a design strategy for the sustainable growth of Didi Bike users, we followed this 4-phase design process. The process and outputs are mapped accordingly.
Phase 1: Background Research
To understand how to design for active user growth for Didi Bike, we have to first understand how the app works in detail. Here we have documented the breakdown of user process through DiDi Bike. From point of entry, to user progress, and lastly exit the app.
After understanding how Didi Bike grooms its users, we dived deep into research on the three Bike sharing company, using PEST, business goals breakdown, AARRR framework (We have conducted other analysis such as use case scenarios breakdown and Business Model Canvas analysis, but for the purpose to keep this report easy to read, I have summarised it to these few presented below)
Just from these comparisons we drew some preliminary
conclusions on the advantages and disadvantages of these brands, which I have
labelled in the diagram below
Phase 2: User Research
With these points and some initial ideas to jumpstart, we then began our second phase, which is defining our challenge scopes, and drafted our questionnaire for user interviews. We interviewed 10 people, and we condensed our user interviews results into the following empathy map. The entire interview process took about 1 week.
The types of issues are categorized by different colours. The 10 people we interviewed are also categorized and internalized into 3 distinguished personas. They are Jean, Chiu and Wang.
We drew 3 quick inferences.
The app needs improvement in the following areas
1. Clearer navigation to guide users to user profiles and ride statistics
2. Allowing sharing ride statistics with friends/network in a more fun and engaging way
3. Improve on rewards redemption process, where redeemable rewards take a physical form where users can feel direct impact, or feel more sense of participation.
Phase 3: Ideations
Armed with these Personas and their respective pain points, we move on to Phase 3 of our project, Ideations (We have completed their respective Customer Journey Mapping and using Point-of-Views (POVs) turned How-might-We (HMWs) to jumpstart brainstorming process as well, but to keep this report concise, I have excluded from this write up)
We compiled these ideas and evaluated them in terms of affinity to our challenge, which is to grow DidiBike’s active users.
These selections helped us redefine the elevator pitch of Didi Bike as a brand, this will help to align the brand’s business goals with its goals, and reinforce its brand identity as an eco-conscious industry player to compete with other brands.
Phase 4: Design
We finally move on to the last phase of the case study. Design proposal. The focus of our design strategy is to promote Didi Bike as an eco-conscious brand, and the use of Didi Bike reduces carbon emissions, this will spur users’ feel-good factor and encourage them to repeatedly use Didi Bike.
We applied our design strategy to a use scenario. The accumulated points from the rides can be redeemed by the users to help out in charity, or participate in environmentally friendly activities. The app will in turn inform users on their contribution level, garnering a sense of satisfaction that will encourage repeat users.
Our updated user journey flow
Finally, our design finalised on mid-fidelity screens.
Conclusion:
Design Highlights
【Infographic on the accumulation of the amount of C02 users have helped to save】Replace existing model of ride accumulation (by timer), this increases users’ awareness of every ride.
【Share with Didi Bike friends/3rd Party Platform collaboration】 Promote interactions within the platform among users and provide users with a new platform of social interaction
【Contribute to charity events or redeem eco-friendly goods】Replace existing system of points accumulation for privileges, which helps users to get physical awards which increases their sense of participation.
Values
Users can help to contribute to environment causes or charity work through simple acts like cycling. Rather than treating cycling as just a means of commute, this can help increase sense of accomplishment amongst users.
Allowing Redemption of Eco-friendly products allows users not just to gain a physical reward, but also raises awareness on being environment conscious on a large scale, and allows users internalize the consciousness into a lifestyle.
The function of Redemption for Charity events allows participation in meaningful events and using Classification of Garbage as a way of growing interactivity is fun and matches with the current policies on classifying trash, allows users to learn while having fun.
This wraps up my group’s Case Study UX Report on DiDi Bike. Hope you enjoyed the write up.
Thank you for reading!