bike rental app case study

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How to design for a bike rental service experience?

BIke Rental Application , Interaction Design , Redesign

UI/ UX Case Study

A monotonous 9-hour job (for some more than that) and commute through traffic takes a big chunk of your day. Also staying fit is important for our health and mind. Chronic stress, sedentary lifestyle, sleep problems, and whatnot. These are not the only problems of urban. One of the possible solutions is, and already adopted by a lot of cities all around the world: increase rates of urban cycling!

PEDL by zoomcar is one of the cycle sharing providers and we worked on the redesigning its user experience for creating the perfect cycling experience.

Initial analysis of the existing app.

Conducting User Interviews and User Testing.

Synthesis and analysis of key opportunities, identified through the research process.

Created wireframes throughout the iteration stage.

Clearing out the myths

Cycling is only for fitness fanatic  — Cycling is good for fitness and shreds some pound, but most of the user of cycle sharing app don’t do excessive cycling and don’t own a fitness band. Users cycle on their own time in their own pace.

You’ll arrive at work hot and sweaty  — Going to run some errands or going to work is not the same as going to a mountain. Cycles are efficient and service is economical. Cycle at a steady pace then it’s no more taxing than walking.

Kickoff: Roaming in the city

There are lots of cycles parked at PEDL station, available in a convenient distance. I went around to explore how the cyclist was getting around. I prepared a questionnaire to conduct user interviews, talk about their stories and observe them in the natural environment.

Early Insights

I had conducted 5 interviews in the city and more 8 by my fellow designers. Our goal was to understand the challenges our users face throughout the journey from locating a cycle station to reaching a destination.

Besides the user’s pain points, we observed their behavior, usage patterns and scenarios in which they were using the service as well as their expectations.

Finding the App

The user came to know about the app from their friends or noticing cycles nearby but the app name is hidden inside their parent app, which is difficult to find.

Navigation to the cycle station

The user didn’t use navigation as he/she knew the location. User preferred the service because the cycle is available nearby.

Unlocking Cycle

Most of the user face difficulty as cycle didn’t unlock immediately but they were charged for the trip.

Ending Trip

Finding cycle station was difficult while cycling. The user had to multitask finding nearest cycle station to their destination.

“We like roaming around at night. HSR roads are good and lighting is good, though not safe, but there is lot of greenery. So we used to cycle around lots of greenery with lights and trees you get that breeze”

-by one of our interview

Discovery: Needs and Expectation

Empathizing through 12 semi-structured user interviews gave us lots of user stories and now it was time to make sense out of this data.

What we discovered from user interviews and their behavior, started creating a pattern. Users expect to experience with minimal effort. Pick-up cycle, roam around and back to parking station. But all trips revealed some extra effort –

Nearest cycle matters

Cycle found damage after unlocking

Back and forth from Google Maps to PEDL

For the commute, not just fitness

Reframing the problem

Cycling boosts your mood, makes you feel calm and healthy. But it has been not the same experience in availing cycle sharing service. Easy commute got difficult in search for PEDL parking station and more frequently discovering ill condition cycle as there is no option to report damage cycle.

“How might we help a user to experience hassle-free cycling, with tackling extra efforts, the user gets into?”

Our cyclist (Personas)

Using Affinity Mapping, we were able to find patterns in user’s behavior, pain points and had a deeper understanding of our end users. Based on the patterns identified we created User Personas which would further help us in the overall project for taking every design decision.

The Redesign — Introducing Velon

In an age where everything is demanding your time, Velon gives your time back by making your cycle experience fast, effortless and calm. Velon makes decisions for you locating the nearest cycle station. Using NB-IOT and Bluetooth for cycle lock making 95% accuracy in unlocking cycle. Seamless experience in finding a station and reach your destination. But how are we doing it?

The Thought Process

Nearest station.

Our research indicated the user looked for the nearest cycle he/she can avail. They didn’t bother looking for other parking station. Navigation was only needed when the user didn’t know the location and that was mostly for first time user or when the user is at a new location.

For group cycling, Unlock plus 1

Out of our interviews, we noticed a pattern that many of our users, cycle in groups and some of them accompanied by their friends or relative who aren’t a regular customer. But to avail cycle, every user had to go the process of downloading the app and sign up, even for our secondary or tertiary user.

We ideate a new feature, where our primary user can avail cycle for one of them. Improving group cycling simpler for our primary user and giving a chance for our secondary and tertiary to have experience of cycle sharing service.

End trip offline

The purpose of using cycle sharing has been primarily for commute and secondary for fitness. It wasn’t the user who mentioned in his/her pain points regarding the mobile battery but we observed, that user is mostly on the move from work to home or getting errands done, mobile is not necessarily charged.

To improve a hassle-free experience, we went further, in a scenario where the user doesn’t need the internet or even mobile to end his/her journey. The user can simply park the cycle at Velon parking station and leave it. Within 10 minutes app will recognize the user’s cycle is not being used for a while and it will end the trip for you. The bill will be calculated moment the user took the cycle to the moment the user reached Velon destination.

From B&W to Color

Moving from structure to skeleton, the product is getting visibility, an idea is getting into motion and the prototype is ready for validation. Between-task flow and creating wireframes, we made a content inventory which also helped in forming information architecture and all the puzzle pieces started coming together into wireframes.

The validation & Iteration

No one can get the product right at once. After an idea is implemented, the next step is validating with your users. If you think about the way people behave, and in particular the differences between the way that say they will behave (in any given circumstance) and the way that they actually behave in that circumstance, you will know that the two are rarely the same thing.

“It is useful and allows for rapid resolution of misunderstandings and established clarity in the early stage.”

Home Screen:  Through user testing we discovered, while showing the nearest station, we need to inform the user why is the chosen station nearest. A better way of displaying the nearest station.

The solution was creating a tab titled ‘Nearest’ and ‘Search’, much simpler way for the user to understand where the station is and the user can search around anywhere in the city.

Trip-In Progress:  The first issue we noticed in testing was, the user looking for a destination and other user looking for nearest parking station has similar goals, so we could have a single button with a better label for both users can understand.

How it looks

Before jumping to a solution on look & feel, even we got the product ready with UX but the last set of remaining question is, How our users will feel? what kind of emotions will our product evoke?

Velon is economical, urban cycling service. The user needs short commute/last mile commute in affordable and easily available. Also, we learned about the psychological benefits of when cycling, your body releases chemicals called endorphins, which also trigger a positive feeling in the body, similar to that of morphine.

“Happy, Economical and Urban — Attributes of Velon”

What user needs and what user will expect are different things but both the questions need to be answered.

This project was done as part of the Full Stack UX Training provided by  Designerrs Lab .

Thanks for reading. Keep following  Designerrs Lab  for more insightful articles related to User Experience Design.

Redesigning Zoomcar PEDL User Experience  was originally published in  DSchool  on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

• Case studies

Revolutionizing E-Bike Rental App Development: Cycle Case Study

Fively specialists created a bunch of modern apps for effective e-bikes and cargo bike rental and management available in over 85 cities in Europe.

About CYCLE

CYCLE is a frontrunner company in reshaping the landscape of last-mile delivery. Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, their innovative e-bike rental apps are now popular in over 85 cities throughout the whole of Europe, making CYCLE the preferred choice for leading delivery services such as Wolt, Flink, and Deliveroo.

CYCLE's vision is not just about changing the face of delivery - it's about a greener future. They aim to significantly reduce traffic-related CO2 emissions by ensuring thousands of bike couriers with a seamless delivery experience daily. Plus, their apps offer weekly maintenance from dedicated local service teams and personalized digital solutions for admins and fleet users.

Their collaboration with industry giants like Gorillas, Flink, Getir, Wolt, Lieferando, Mjam, and others speaks volumes about their impact and credibility in the market. Aiming to further popularize their apps across Europe, they are on the lookout for passionate individuals to join their mission and contribute to a greener and more efficient future.

Transportation and Logistics

1-5 engineers

automated e-bike services for couriers, admins, and fleet users

cities in Europe prefer CYCLE

client’s willingness to refer

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Challenges of Creating E-Bike Apps for Delivery

The ambitious vision of CYCLE, a transformative figure in the transportation and logistics industry, extends beyond just changing the face of last-mile delivery. Recognizing the increasing demand from both B2B and B2C clients for fleet bicycle services, CYCLE aimed to introduce web and mobile apps for renting electric bikes for delivery that would cater to these specific user bases.

They desired to create an integrated ecosystem where personalized e-bike services for various participants – couriers, administrators, fleet users, and mechanics – cohesively interact in a seamless manner.

Yet, turning this vision into a reality posed multiple intricate challenges, as it required the creation of many separate apps working synergistically. An intricate infrastructure was needed internally for their mechanics and operations team to manage and service these e-bike apps efficiently.

The specific challenges and requirements of this project were as follows:

• Join the client's team to assist in the designing and continuous testing of the client’s web and mobile apps for the rental of electric bikes for delivery, as well as internal tools for the mechanics and operations team;
• Manage the implementation of the ready-made designs for all e-bike client applications, ensuring perfect user experience across various platforms;
• Cover all the apps’ features for administrators, mechanics, couriers, and fleet users with professional testing services, including complex ones like GPS navigation or discount creation to help the development team eliminate all bugs and tune their proper work;
• Help with complex testing and launching of the RMA cases in the app for mechanics, so that mechanics could easily create an RMA case within the app, and attach it to a service order;
• Create brand-new intuitive designs for the client website, and websites tailored to new CYCLE partners, streamlining the couriers’ registration flow using the checkout page, and integrating the ability for admins to effortlessly add bicycles through the admin panel;
• Ensure the full synchronization of apps for administrators, couriers, mechanics, and fleet users, so that they form an interconnected system and work seamlessly;
• Provide e-bike rental apps with continuous maintenance and support and consistently make improvements to the admin panel, adapting to the evolving needs of the users.

Given the intricate nature of these challenges, CYCLE was in search of a custom software development team with a proven track record of versatility, a modern approach in UI/UX, and thorough integration and niche expertise.

Essential attributes like time management skills, stringent data security understanding, and the ability to work in sync with CYCLE’s in-house professionals were paramount for the client.

That’s how Fively specialists were recommended to CYCLE by their fellow engineers who had previously worked with us. Impressed by our holistic approach to custom software development, our CRM development expertise, and our strive for innovative solutions , CYCLE entrusted us with this monumental task. Together, we embarked on the transformative journey of creating e-bike apps for delivery with CYCLE in early 2022.

How Fively Enhanced CYCLE's E-Bike Rental Applications

In pursuit of CYCLE's goal to revolutionize electric bike rental for food delivery, Fively stepped into this ambitious project with a team of seasoned professionals, consisting of our automated QA specialist and a Senior UI/UX designer. Let's delve into our approach in detail

Project architecture . At the outset, Fively’s involvement was directed toward managing the implementation of the ready-made client designs for all the e-bike apps. Thus, after we caught the client’s requirements, our Senior UI/UX designer, armed with Figma, began sculpting designs that prioritized the user-centric principles of the company.

Then, our automated QA specialist introduced a multi-faceted testing approach, to not only test the existing apps’ functions but also to recognize potential areas of improvement in the user experience and identify critical testing areas. For this, we used the following tools:

• Chrome DevTools and BrowserStack – with the help of these tools for testing we ensured compatibility across different devices, browsers, and OS environments;
• Postman – assisted in API testing to validate backend services and ensure that all APIs communicated effectively;
• Loom – we used it for video recording to demonstrate bugs and provide detailed feedback on user experience. This provided developers with a clear visual guide so that they could fix any possible issues;
• DogQ – we used it for creating multiple automated testing scripts to validate the critical paths and functionalities so that we could make sure every feature introduced worked flawlessly.

Later, in the course of the project duration, CYCLE decided to redesign its apps to make them even more intuitive and handy for customers.The idea was to ensure every user – be it a renter, mechanic, or administrator – experienced seamless interactions with electric bike apps for food delivery, with layouts that were both user-friendly and visually pleasing.

Our prodigy UI/UX specialist, working together with the client’s professional team crafted all the needed materials in Figma in a short amount of time, and now we’re finishing our work on the application’s redesign. Soon, all the CYCLE’s apps will get a new, even more client-centered vision and layout.

Team structure . The success of this e-bike rental project belongs to the harmonized efforts of the client’s international team of specialists. Representing Fively, we contributed our senior UI/UX designer and a highly experienced QA automation engineer, who seamlessly integrated with the broader international development ensemble, and now continue to work on this project.

Communication tools . During the entire project duration, we established flawless communication with CYCLE’s team: regular weekly standups in Google Meet, open discussions, and our proactive approach ensured that the client was always updated on our progress, facilitating swift decision-making and addressing challenges head-on.

For project management, we leveraged the ClickUp tool: this task tracker streamlined our work process, ensuring every team member was aligned with the project objectives and priorities, plus we used Jira and Notion to track deadlines. All immediate questions and quick task-related queries we discussed with the team on Slack.

By maintaining regular touchpoints, we could ensure alignment with the client’s vision, solicit timely feedback, and make swift course corrections as needed. Fively's consistent involvement in the project, combined with our tech-savvy approach, helped to make CYCLE’s e-bike rental applications one of the most popular solutions of this kind throughout the whole of Europe.

Cycle Project Results: Transforming E-Bike Rental

In close partnership with CYCLE's internal team, we achieved significant strides in building a modern e-bike rental system that didn't just amplify operational efficiency but truly transformed how companies approach sustainable transportation.

Together with CYCLE, we're proud to present a suite of solutions that not only meet the outlined requirements but also set new industry standards in e-mobility software solutions.

• Fively specialists successfully integrated with CYCLE's international project team and helped to design and thoroughly test numerous cutting-edge web and mobile apps for bicycle rental and servicing.
• We helped to launch, and then re-brand modern and intuitive designs across all e-bike client applications. These designs are not only visually appealing but also optimize user experience across various device types, ensuring consistent user satisfaction and high Core Web Vitals scores.
• We executed comprehensive testing for apps serving administrators, mechanics, couriers, and fleet users. Through our tailored test cases and meticulously crafted bug reports, we ensured the reliable and bug-free work of all the apps.
• We took particular care in ensuring that complex apps’ features, such as the personalized discount coupon creation and GPS navigation were 100% tested and flawlessly integrated across all platforms, amplifying CYCLE's value proposition to its clients.
• One of the standout achievements was the introduction and thorough testing of the RMA cases feature for mechanics. This innovation now enables mechanics to effortlessly initiate an RMA case within the application, associate it with a service order, and offers administrators a streamlined mechanism to oversee such cases.
• Our UI/UX specialist created bespoke website designs for the clien and for CYCLE’s partners. Specifically for these new designs, we helped to optimize the admin panel so that admins could seamlessly manage all rental operations, as well as couriers could choose partners and register directly on the CYCLE’s website via the checkout page.
• A cornerstone of this project was ensuring the interoperability of all the apps. Thanks to our meticulous testing approach, all e-bike apps for delivery now work in perfect harmony, fostering a cohesive ecosystem devoid of breakdowns.
• Fively continues to offer unwavering maintenance and support for e-bike rental applications. We provide all the apps with further testing, and consistently introduce refinements to the admin panel, as well as apps for mechanics, fleet users, and couriers, so that the software remains aligned with the evolving user needs and industry trends.

Currently, our collaboration with CYCLE remains ongoing as we’re turning their new UI/UX vision into life and continue to provide all the apps with thorough testing for a perfect user experience. This ensures the platform functions seamlessly and incorporates the latest advancements in e-mobility and digital solutions.

Although this ambitious project is not over, it has already become a benchmark in the niche of personalized e-bike services. Together with CYCLE, we helped not only create numerous e-bike apps for delivery but to revolutionize the current image of bike delivery.

Now, businesses all over Europe, including industry stalwarts like Gorillas, Flink, Getir, Wolt, Lieferando, Mjam, and others, have the ability to seamlessly manage fleet bicycles, cater to varied user needs, and ensure smooth deliveries every day.

Here’s what the CYCLE Senior Product Manager says about our collaboration:

The company is happy with Fively's services. End users have no complaints about the developed features, and hundreds of bugs have been avoided. The team cooperates well with the client's staff. They meet deadlines and complete tasks quickly and seamlessly. Their communication skills are also great.

Ekaterina Kozlovskaya

Senior Product Manager at CYCLE

Technology Stack

At Fively, we're committed to utilizing the forefront of technology and the most recent innovations in the tech space to craft state-of-the-art solutions. For these e-bike rental apps’ design and testing, we used the technologies presented below.

• Chrome DevTools
• BrowserStack

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Fively is a custom software development company, that has been gaining recognition throughout its existence.

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