QuickTrip — Design Process
Year: 2024
Duration: 6 months.
Platform: iOS Mobile App
Tools: Figma, React native.
Interactable Prototype
The Challenge
Pubilc transport is expensive in the UK! Specially when friends are travelling in groups. Believe it or not, the cheapest way to travel in the UK is in groups sharing a private vehicle. However, there is no easy way to calculate and share car fuel cost among friends.
We conducted qualitative research on drivers’s experiences, need, and knowledge about car ownership cost and found that drivers would love to share fuel cost with their friends and currently they do it a traditional way where they give a ball park number and the friend pay’s through bank transfer. Something is missing. How can we modern technology to give accurate fuel cost and users can easily calculate and pay for the trip with as low as 3 clicks!
My Role(s)
UX Design & Researcher
As 1 of the 2 UX leads, I taught and mentored university students in user-research methodologies (i.e. usability testing, speed-dating protocols, interview protocol creation, competitor analysis processes, affinity diagramming, etc.). I also taught design strategies such as prototyping in Figma, rapid sketching exercises, feedback and critiquing techniques, and others. I made informed design decisions regarding the project’s front-end components and continued to use my skills gained in my Master’s program to shape the project goals and outcome.
Project Manager
I worked alongside another graduate student to manage the project direction and progress. I recruited and communicated with participants, outlined and directed the workload for team members, reported progress to faculty advisors and overseers.
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Executive Summary
Goal:
Simplify the fuel cost calculation process and enhance travel planning for commuters, road trippers, and frequent travelers.
Solution:
We developed Quick Trip, a mobile application that enables users to quickly and accurately calculate fuel costs for their trips. By integrating vehicle data with real-time map functionality, Quick Trip helps users understand their trip’s fuel expenses, offering a seamless and efficient way to budget for both everyday commutes and long-distance road trips. Whether it’s for a solo journey or a group trip, Quick Trip also provides the ability to split costs fairly among friends, making travel planning easier and more cost-effective.
Framing the challenge
In developing QuickTrip, the primary challenge was to design a user-friendly solution that addressed the complexities of splitting fuel costs for group travel. The goal was to create an app that provided a seamless, intuitive experience for users to calculate, share, and manage expenses transparently. Balancing accurate cost estimation with a sleek, engaging design was essential to making QuickTrip both practical and enjoyable for users on the go.
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The User
Target Users: Female students ages 18 and older.
In our first round of interviews, I conducted 4 out of 15 interviews with female students to get a better understanding of their feelings towards and experiences with negotiating. I co-wrote our interview script, which encouraged storytelling and guided conversation with participants.
UX Research
Identifying the Problem
Through in-depth conversations with frequent drivers, including delivery drivers in London and road-trippers planning long journeys, we identified a common pain point: users needed an intuitive, fast way to calculate fuel costs. Traditional methods—whether through complicated spreadsheets, unreliable estimations, or manual input of various data points—were time-consuming and frustrating. This made it difficult for commuters and travelers to quickly plan their trips and accurately budget their fuel expenses. Additionally, users expressed a need for an easy way to split costs among friends when traveling together.
To better understand these challenges, we conducted competitive analysis and examined existing fuel and trip planning apps. We also gathered user feedback to better tailor the app to the needs of both individual commuters and groups of friends traveling together.
Competitive Analysis
Understanding the Landscape
While several apps exist for fuel cost calculation and trip planning, many are either too complex or lack the speed and simplicity users need. Apps like Blablacar and Splitwise offer elements of fuel cost sharing or carpooling, but they often focus more on the social aspects of travel and less on quick, accurate fuel cost estimation. Additionally, many of these apps require multiple steps or manual inputs to calculate costs, which detracts from the user experience.
In contrast, Quick Trip offers a more streamlined solution—users can calculate fuel costs with just two clicks, making it ideal for busy commuters and road trippers looking for a hassle-free experience. Our analysis showed a significant opportunity to differentiate Quick Trip by focusing on speed and simplicity, removing unnecessary complexity while still providing the accurate, real-time cost estimates users need.
