Micromobility en West Palm Beach

company

Iomob

ROLe

Product Designer

Duration

12 weeks

year

2023

Project description

BrightBike is the official bike-sharing system of West Palm Beach. The service offers bicycles 24/7 at stations throughout downtown, enabling residents and visitors to travel sustainably.

They contacted us to develop their app, having identified several problems with their existing one:

Identified challenges

Difficulty finding available bikes or nearby stations.
Rental processes unclear for new users.
Lack of clear visibility of bike and station status.

Design process

The challenge was to redesign the BrightBike app experience to simplify the process of finding and renting bikes and improve clarity around the usage system (rental vs. membership). This would help increase service usage and user retention.

Discovery

To understand the usage context, three main areas were analyzed:

1. Service analysis:
The BrightBike system allows two ways to use the service:

Hourly rental for visitors or occasional trips.
Membership for residents with unlimited trips up to 60 minutes per ride.

This hybrid model requires clear explanation of the differences to avoid friction.

2. Mobility context:
The app is used in fast-paced urban mobility scenarios, such as commuting to work, connecting with public transport, or sightseeing.

This demands a fast, clear experience with minimal friction.

3. Benchmark:
Micromobility apps such as CitiBike, Lime, Bicing, and Donkey Republic were analyzed. Key patterns identified:

Real-time maps.
Quick unlocking.
Clear trip information.
Transparent pricing.

Insights

Key takeaways were:

The most important decision happens on the map:
Users first want to know if there are bikes available nearby.
The difference between rental and membership is not obvious:
Many users don’t understand which option is more convenient.
Activation must be extremely fast:
In urban mobility, every second of friction reduces adoption.

Product Strategy

The strategy focused on three pillars:

Discoverability: Make finding a nearby bike immediate.
Simplicity: Reduce the steps needed to unlock a bike.
Clarity: Explain the usage model intuitively.

Solution

Home focused on the map:

The map becomes the central element of the experience.

Key features:

Nearby stations.
Number of available bikes.
Free parking spots.

This allows users to make quick decisions on where to start their ride.

Simplified rental flow:

The process to start a ride is reduced to three steps:

Select a station or bike.
Scan QR or unlock via the app.
Start the ride.

The goal is for the entire process to take less than 10 seconds.

Clear plan comparison:

The pricing screen was redesigned to visually explain:

Single-use rental.
Monthly membership.

With usage examples to facilitate decision-making.

Trip feedback:

During and after the ride, the app displays:

Trip duration.
Estimated cost.
Nearest return station.

This enhances the sense of control throughout the journey.

Result

After optimizing the discovery, rental, and trip management experience, significant improvements were observed in key product metrics:

+28%

Ride Completion Rate

Improvements in the unlocking flow and clarity of available stations increased the percentage of users who complete a trip after starting the process.