Mobi • A Bike Sharing App

Implementing usability improvements based on heuristic evaluation.

Overview

MOBI BY SHAW GO, a bike sharing app.

This app allows users to find bikes available for rent and empty stalls available to dock. It’s a necessary product for a Mobi user to download for the bike sharing system to work. It also allows users to save their favourites and to check how much and how long they’ve riden after their rental.

GOAL

The goal is to unveil existing usability issues through heuristic evaluation on the mobile application, Mobi by Shaw Go, in order to improve the overall performance.

We can immediately tell that the user experience has been on the lower side, at only 1.8 stars, zero positive written reviews, and over a hundred critical reviews on the app store.

HOW

Using Neilsen Norman Group’s 10 Usability Heuristics and rated the severity of usability problems from 0 to 4. This method helps to justify the existing problems and to gauge the need for additional usability efforts.

Executive Summary

MOBILE APPLICATION

Mobi by Shaw Go

RATIONALE

The Mobi app is an integral player in the Vancouver bike sharing system that relies on their users to keep track of their rides and favourite bike stalls through the mobile app, and it is important for their app’s accessibility and usability to match their municipal sustainable transportation goals. The concept of Mobi is a great solution to accessible biking; however, we can immediately notice from the ratings of the Google Play Store and App Store that the user experience has been on the lower side, at 1.8 stars, zero positive written reviews, and over a hundred critical reviews on the app store. By referencing Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics as our scope to rate the severity of usability problems on the Mobi app, our evaluation would be of value to justify the existing problems and to gauge the need for additional usability efforts.

DISCLAIMER

Multiple bugs and formatting issues exist throughout the app, which could not be included in the heuristic evaluation as it is out of our evaluation that focusses on the app’s user interface.

SELECTED TASK FLOW

Starting from the moment the user decides to find a bike to rent to the point where the user docks their rented bike.

APP TRAITS IN VIOLATION OF HEURISTIC PRINCIPLES

These are the targets to tackle, in order to prevent further user frustration and negative mobile app reviews:
• 6 traits at a severity level of 4 (usability catastrophe)
• 1 trait at a severity level of 3 (major usability issue)
• 5 traits at severity level of 2 (minor usability issue)
• 2 traits at severity level of 1 (cosmetic issue)

CONCLUSION

Through conducting our heuristic evaluation, the significant reoccuring violations fell within these heuristics principles: 1. Consistency and Standards; 2. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design. The design of the Mobi app did not appear to have gone through the considerations of longevity of quality and intuitive usage. The location page and the search bar were the most severe obstacles for user-friendliness. An alarming amount of redundancies were found in implementing both icons and pages that were not contributing to enhancing a user’s experience.

To tie into our critique, we would like to emphasize that Mobi is a great concept that Shaw Go had conceived to promote accessible biking. It is such an attractive concept that even with the difficulties and bad reviews on the app store, there had been over 50,000 downloads in the attempt of trying out this bike sharing program. There is much potential for Mobi’s mobile application to be just as enriched as the purpose that drives their bike sharing initiative.

Part 1

Heuristic Evaluation of the Current State

Selected Task Flow

Heuristic Summary

Evaluation Score

Here are the 5 usability heuristic principles that we evaluated from. To summarize from the average scores of each usability heuristic principle that we extracted from, it was no surprise that the numbers were reflective from our observations, where Flexibility and Efficiency of Use ranked as what Nielson would describe as a usability catastrophe.

Part 2

Usability Recommendations
& Redesigning Mobi

Internal Branding as a Constraint

TYPOGRAPHY

Primary Colour

3C88BA

Secondary Colours

2D6B92

004C73

Tertiary Colours

E63E2A

61A53F

UI ELEMENTS

Usability recommendations in order of priority

Improvements implementing usability recommendations based on the heuristic evaluation.

 Horizontally scroll through the slides to review the design improvement, Before and After, of the selected task flow.

© Fiona Zeng 2024