eCycle: Electric-bike-sharing App UX Case Study

Academic Independent Project

Duration: 4 Months from September to December 2020

Project Brief: eCycle is an e-bike-sharing system that provides Electric bikes to people to use across Canada. eCycle consists of multiple interconnected stations whereby people can exchange e-bikes to rent, based upon a given time frame. The ‘docking’ stations provide convenient drop off and pick up locations.

01. Overview

eCycle is a mobile application aimed to provides electric bikes to people who want to commute conveniently and healthily.

The docks of eCycle intersperse both in the cities and some suburb locations for people to drop off and pick up. People can rent the electric bike at a reasonable price and use it in a given time frame. Besides, instead of the traditional way to rent a bike in station kiosks, people can get exact information about bikes and make a reservation with the App beforehand at their preferred locations.

Based on target users’ characteristics, young professionals, the eCycle will engage them with the health tracking feature and minimal modern design.

02. Problem

For young professionals, who haven’t owned their vehicles or are fed up with low public transportation, they eager to find an alternative way to help them travel around the city conveniently.

Also, the overloaded projects keep young professionals sitting in the office all day long, resulting in them not having time to work out.

Some young professionals had rented electric bikes from kiosks before, but the limitation of eCycle can’t satisfy their needs. For instance, they cannot reserve electric bikes in advance, making them hard to get an electric bicycle during rush hour.

03. Solution

eCycle is a user-friendly and accessible application that understands users’ needs and helps them solve problems, achieving their goals eventually.

To satisfy the high demand for electric bikes, eCycle provides a sufficient amount of bikes interspersed the subway stations, business districts, and even corners of streets in cities, where are easy to approach.

Users can find all information about available docks and electric bikes on the App. Users are able to reserve an electric bike in advance with a simple click, no matter where they are. Besides, the secure prepayment deposit allows the rental process more convenient for users.

What’s more, as a bonus to the user who concerns about their health, eCycle has a health tracking function to record the distance and hours the user has ridden and how many calories have burned.

04. Competitive Analysis

05. User Persona

06. Storyboard

07. User Flow Diagram

To simplify the rental process with eCycle, I’d encourage users to set up a prepayment deposit. With the prepayment deposit, users can rent an e-bike by a simple click instead of making decisions for each ride–whether the time frame is enough for them to reach the destination, how they should make a payment, etc.

What’s more, eCycle also provides time-reminder and rental history functions to elevate user experience.

08. Typography & Colour

09. Logo

10. Wireframe Sketches

11. Low-fidelity Wireframes

Based on the user flow diagram and sketches, I designed low-fidelity wireframes of eCycle to present the core functions and the whole rental process, including the onboarding, prepayment setting, reservation, and the reminder.