We talk a lot about Uber, Uber X, Uber Pop, etc. Sometimes criticized, sometimes cited as an example, sometimes mis à l’échafaud. Everyone has their own opinion and wants to share it. Uber was created in 2009 and built their client base, now world-wide, little by little. Overnight success doesn’t exist; we need to look at the work that was done in advance that has lead to the company’s massive success. What have they done to satisfy their clients? What do they offer?
Whether you are for or against this type of industry, you can’t deny that Uber’s user research and understanding of client needs is exemplary. Their success is a source of inspiration for any company looking to improve their user and client experience.
Uber did not revolutionize the transport of people. The company still uses the most simple means of getting around from point A to point B: personalized car service, which has not evolved since horse-drawn carriages (depuis le temps des cochers et des calèches). Let us not also forget that Uber has many competitors and many other companies are trying to address this same problem.
What Uber did - and what every company should do - is offer a quality client experience at each point of contact: telephone, mobile app, website, communication, texts, and of course person-to-person. Only emphasizing technology is not the key to success. The key to all client experience is human contact. Uber is not only an excellent digital experience, it’s an excellent human experience.
Let’s forget about the politics surrounding Uber for a moment and concentrate on the company’s evolution and analyze their digital experience.
Note: Bastien & Scapin’s ergonomic cognitive criteria are used for this analysis, which is based on proved objective criteria. Heuristic evaluation lead by Laure-Gabrielle Chatenet and proofed by Jean-Michel Lacroix, co-founders of Capian.
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Criteria:
1.1. Prompting, 1.2.1. Grouping/Distinction by Location, 1.3. Immediate Feedback
Description:
This page shows a simple process: find your location on a map in order to go from point A to point B.
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 7. Significance of Codes
Description:
The style is enough to communicate the message.
The user knows who they are doing business with and how to use the service.
- The 3 steps are clear, the actions to be carried out are clear and concise.
Criteria:
1.2.2. Grouping/Distinction by Format, 1.3. Immediate Feedback, 2.1.2. Minimal Actions
Description:
- The informational elements’ feedback is simple and easy to understand.
- Focus is placed on the phone: personal and always accessible.
- Utility before all else.
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 1.4. Legibility, 2.1.1. Concision
Description:
- Focus is on lifestyle. Beyond the practical aspect, the client experience comes before the functionalities and traveling.
The functional aspect is placed lower on the page.
- There is a clear break and a clearly-superior branding that is communicated.
- The relationship is well established, the current and potential users know that they can have several different types of cars.
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 1.4. Legibility, 2.1.2. Minimal Actions
Description:
- Minimal actions to access the Uber experience. Women are also targeted.
Simplicity is a clear priority, as is security.
- Price has become very important as it’s now on the home page: Uber calculates your rides for you - no surprises. Uber is no longer the only company to offer this service, the competitors feel the pressure.
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 1.4. Legibility, 2.1.2. Minimal Actions
Description:
The Uber experience is simplicity. The sign-up process must be simple. It’s the 2nd contact with the brand, the first being the welcome page and media. All of the sign-up elements are on the page - no surprise - in a concise form. 3 simple steps.
During sign-up, Uber follows up with the simplicity met on the welcome screen.
Client respect is present, no social media profile information is required nor is other non-essential information in order to meet the user’s needs:
- Order an Uber ride to get around
- Know the wait time
Estimate the price
- Arrive on time
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 2.2. Information Density
Description:
Uber is not only a way to get from point A to point B. It’s a lifestyle, a discovery, a way to consume locally. Close to your life or travel, Uber accompanies you to give new ideas and help you navigate better.
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback
Description:
Simplicity, clarity, sobriety.
The brand is known.
Users with the mobile application on their phones expect a quality experience.
Criteria:
1.1. Prompting, 1.3. Immediate Feedback
Description:
The user opens the app and sees a pop-up promotion for the upcoming ‘Poutine Week’.
The user has the choice to click on the link
Or to click elsewhere on the screen and go directly to ordering an Uber ride
Recommendation:
Possibility to have just an advertisement bar to not lose the user’s focus and give freedom of interaction
- To increase affordance, add a plus button at the top right of the advertisement
Criteria:
2.1.1. Concision, 3.1. Explicit User Action, 3.2. User Control
Description:
Once you click on the pop-up link ‘Details Here’, the application takes you to a web page and shows an old update dating to December 31, 2015.
Recommendation:
This action implies a redirection error on Uber’s behalf.
This point of the user experience is lessened by the lack of update.
This is the most recent update of the Uber site.
Where is the ‘Poutine Week’ ad?
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 1.4. Legibility, 3.2. User Control
Description:
The user navigates in the menu to discover the application.
These are the estimated user needs in order of importance:
- Payment
- Trip
Other functionalities that could help or interest the user
Criteria:
2.1.1. Concision, 2.1.2. Minimal Actions
Description:
We’ve positioned ourselves as an Uber user; we tested the order process with the app.
We created an account on the website, as previously seen. The actions were minimal.
Criteria:
2.1.1. Concision, 2.1.2. Minimal Actions, 3.1. Explicit User Action
Description:
The user indicates their drop-off location with an address in order to start the ride.
The focus is on the main action: enter and validate the pick-up and drop-off information.
We can assume at this stage that the business model has not change: the user indicates that they want to go from point A to point B.
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 3.2. User Control, 5.3. Error Correction
Description:
If the user moves the cursor a little, their car will not show up to the correct location and the Uber driver will lose the position of the rider.
Recommendation:
This is not always obvious to new users. Offer the possibility to reframe/refocus the departure.
Criteria:
2.1.1. Concision, 2.1.2. Minimal Actions, 3.1. Explicit User Action
Description:
The user verifies that their information is accurate.
The user can order an Uber.
The total ride time is estimated minute-to-minute.
Better feedback would be necessary to assure the user that their order is not final and that they must confirm their ride before calling a driver.
Reflection: Have you ever ordered a taxi in less than 1 minute?
Recommendation:
The arrow could be emphasized more to reassure the user so they can more easily access more information before ordering an Uber ride.
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 3.2. User Control
Description:
The user is ready to order a ride.
Confirmation of steps:
- Departure and arrival
The map is already saved
They can see the estimated price or enter a promo code
They can pass directly to ordering an Uber
Criteria:
2.1. Brevity, 2.1.2. Minimal Actions, 3.2. User Control
Description:
The user still has control over the payment option for each ride.
The app proposes to scan a credit card to quickly and automatically fill in the payment form if you need to add a payment method.
Criteria:
2.1.1. Concision, 2.1.2. Minimal Actions
Description:
The user can add a promotional code right away and can use it for their current ride, not a future one. Uber offers their users immediacy through this simple process.
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 3.2. User Control
Description:
By clicking on ‘Price Estimate,’ the user knows:
- How much longer before their driver arrives
How much the ride will cost
The price estimation is a key functionality of the Uber model and an important component of the client experience. With a classic taxi, it’s impossible to have this information (except for fixed-price trips).
Recommendation:
Explain that the estimated price is not fixed (it’s not clear that the user can click on the price estimation for more information).
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 2.1.1. Concision
Description:
The user wants more information about pricing; Uber offers them a detailed pricing screen and explains the information clearly.
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 3.2. User Control
Description:
The ride is ordered, the user has several minutes to cancel their ride if they change their mind.
Criteria:
2.1.2. Minimal Actions, 2.2. Information Density, 3.2. User Control
Description:
Still in control, the user wants to cancel the ride within 5 minutes of ordering it. No problem, Uber does not charge anything.
During a ride, you can select your driver’s itinerary and following the ride on your phone.
Criteria:
2.1. Brevity
Description:
At the end of the ride, the user:
can rank the driver
sees all the details of the ride
- receives an email receipt (inflated by $1 to ensure technical control and security) (https://help.uber.com/h/4fa83c50-ab30-434c-b911-f63ad11cd4d9)
- can file a complaint if necessary
has a ride history
Criteria:
1.3. Immediate Feedback, 3.2. User Control
Description:
If the user realizes that the driver did not take the correct route or that their judgment was off, the Uber client can adjust the driver’s ranking at a later time.
The user can see the rides they’ve taken and estimate the amount they’ve spent.
Criteria:
2.1. Brevity, 2.1.1. Concision
Description:
Uber wants to get drivers out to gain more of the market.
Users are led to have only one reflex: never think about taking a taxi, but rather only think about using Uber.
Share in social media, by email, by text, etc.
An important request for uber to win over more users. The speed of the ride and the clarity of their communication.
Recommendation:
Important viral incentive: in the app or via email.
Criteria:
6. Consistency
Description:
The Facebook page proposes content according to user location. Facebook Content: Uber is a lifestyle and uses this to promote their operations.
Criteria:
6. Consistency
Description:
The global community is very important and can influence markets, politics, media, and public opinion.
Possibility to follow other cities: ability to follow Uber by city.
Uber disturbs: It’s one of the most critiqued and attached companies over the past few years. It disturbs because it has greatly changed the vision and economy around which competitors must reinvent themselves to stay relevant.
Technology is key to Uber’s success. It’s thanks to its mastery and acquisition of technology that it has been able to rapidly grow in independence and success. It’s also because Uber new how to see the dissatisfaction of taxi users having to suffer from regulations that were not made to offer a quality experience that would respond to their needs.
Change always breeds fear, but often brings progress, improvement, and revolution.
Let us not forget that, when the telephone was invented, telegraph companies saw no use for it and were sure that there would be no future for the telephone.
Is Uber a perfect experience? Can it satisfy every single passenger? Will all users become clients? Probably not. This is a market in the midst of upheaval in the middle of reinventing itself. There is a lot of competition, lobbying, and enormous sommes of money at stake.
Let’s hope that the stakeholders find the benefit.
Evaluation by Laure Gabrielle Chatenet, client and user experience consultant and co-founder of Capian. Proofread by Jean-Michel Lacroix. Bastien & Scapin’s Evaluation Criteria can be found on the Capian website.
This report was created with Capian, an all-in-one UX tool which lets you quickly capture and annotate interfaces in order to communicate improvement needs between services, to break down the company's silos, and is an essential tool to standardize/harmonize the different products and services.
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