Uber Donations: Adding an App Feature

How might we make a difference by implementing a donation round-up option on Uber that can also be pre-set for your favorite charity?

There were 6.9 billion Uber rides in 2019. Imagine if each of those rides had been rounded up to support charitable causes. Consider if every user opted to round up by just 10 cents per ride, resulting in 690 million dollars donated in a single year. This week I was happily challenged by a fellow UX student (my client) to add a feature to Uber that would make these round up donations possible. My immediate reaction when I heard the concept was… How does this feature not already exist??

User Interviews:

Before designing this new feature, I conducted five user interviews with individuals who all actively use Uber. My goal was to learn more about their experience using the app, as well as their experiences donating to charity in general. I found that some users deeply value the specific charity involved when deciding whether to donate, while others don’t mind a randomized or featured charity. However, all users wanted to at least know the basic information about where their money is going when being asked to round up to donate. All the users were comfortable with at least a 10 cent donation.

The most interesting takeaway from my user interviews was regarding tipping. When I asked the users about the order in which they would expect to be prompted to donate, every user described a pop-up at the end of the Uber ride before tipping. I followed up by asking each user how they would feel about tipping immediately after donating and 100% of users said that if they were asked to both donate and tip after the ride, it would most likely impact the tip.

Especially during a pandemic, I don’t want this new feature to potentially take tips away from hardworking drivers - so I aimed to keep the donation feature separate.

Comparative Analysis:

With some new ideas from my users, I conducted a quick competitor analysis. I found that Lyft has a pre-set round up feature for charity similar to the one I was looking to implement. After gaining some great insight from this feature, called LyftUp, I looked into Ryanair, McDonald’s and various grocery stores to compare how they offer donation round ups for further inspiration.

Task Analysis:

My research led me to believe that this new feature should prompt the user to donate each ride and also have an option to pre-set donations for a specific charity of the users choice. In order to create these two options, I needed to create two happy paths that would also eventually connect. I asked five users to do a quick task analysis on the Uber app. The users guided me through where they would expect to find donation information as well as how they would expect to be prompted to donate when booking a car. All the users had similar flows in mind, which I used to create my happy path. Check it out!

Lo-Fi:

Using my happy path, I designed a lo-fidelity prototype and tested with seven users. I tasked each user to:

1. Book a car
2. Access the donation information from the home screen

I discovered a couple main pain points:

• The pop-up asking the user to round up listed the new price but didn’t mention the old price or how much it was rounded up by
• The confirmation screen for the pre-set donation option was too confusing — people thought they needed to keep going even though the task was completed.

I did my best to make the changes to improve these aspects of the user experience.

Mid-Fi:

Now we’ve gotten to the fun part — the part where you can check out all the mid-fidelity screens as a gif! I tested the mid-fidelity prototype with five more users and found some prototyping bugs and alignment issues to fix.

My biggest testing takeaway: Add an additional flow for when the user has already opted into donating, reminding them when they book a ride that they’re donating to charity.

We aren’t done making a difference yet… Keep scrolling for the final product!

Hi-Fi:

Using Figma and Uber’s online style guide, I recreated the screens involved in my happy path — as well as created screens for the new pop-ups and donation section of the app. I wanted to create a feature that felt organic to the brand and wasn’t an imposition to the user.

1. The user enters the home page, books a car, and is prompted by a single pop-up to round up the price of their trip to donate to a featured charity. The user can either choose to round up, not round up, or manage donations to select a preferred charity and donation amount. From there the Uber ride journey is the same as it ever was. A difference was made, and it was made easily.
2. The user returns to the home screen and uses the burger menu to access donation information. The new feature offers a selection of charities, each of which has the opportunity to “learn more” with a nonintrusive pop-up including charity details. Once a charity has been selected, the user can choose how much they wish to round up by, and can confirm this pre-set donation which will apply each time they ride. They can always opt out or edit the donation information.
3. Once the user has a pre-set donation in place for each ride, they can go ahead and book a car normally again. Instead of being prompted to donate, they are reminded with a pop-up that they’re rounding up for the preferred charity and can proceed to book their car.

Reflection:

I loved working on this project. There was a lot of autonomy and freedom to use our best judgment to plan our processes. Designing this entire feature solo in four days was challenging but also incredibly rewarding. I could really see my own personal growth throughout the week. Not only did I get to work on my UI design and UX research skills, I also got to develop a feature that would allow for an incredible contribution towards important causes. I was proud to design an ethical feature that also wouldn’t make the Uber booking experience more stressful or accidentally result in Uber drivers losing tips… What amazing proof that user research can have an incredible real impact.