Personal Project

BlaBlaCar Redesign

Rol
  • UX Research | App Designer
Year
  • 2025
  • Goal

Improve and automate the user flow in the app's current validation process, requiring minimal interaction and ensuring security and bilateral validation between driver and passenger.

UX Research

Identify needs and problems

The BlaBlaCar app launched the BlaBlaBono Energético programme, which rewards both drivers and passengers for carpooling, contributing to the reduction of their carbon footprint.

To achieve this, drivers and their passengers must verify through the app that they are travelling together at the beguining and at the end of the journey.

  • Problems Detected:
  • The validation process involves several steps that require filling in details at a time when the driver and passenger do not have much time to do so.
  • Validation is manual and requires users to remember to perform this step voluntarily.
  • Unnecessary steps appear at the time of validation, slowing down the process, like a survey.
  • All steps must be repeated at the start and end of the journey.

The research process included:

  • Experimentation as a user of the application.
  • Gathering feedback from other users through interviews
  • UX Research with ChatGPT
  • Exploration of other carpooling validation models and technologies used through articles and experimentation with other applications, such as Tribbu.
  • Discoveries

Key Insights:

Friction points:

  • Time: Journeys usually start immediately. There is no time for everyone to fill in details or complete manual steps.
  • Agility: The current process is too lengthy and intrusive at a time of high activity. (Users [driver and passengers] are busy organising themselves, getting into the car, putting luggage away, starting the engine, etc.)
  • Relevance: Some of these steps do not involve validating that the driver and passengers are together; like the transport survey.
  • Technology: The technology used by other transport and carpooling apps to streamline their processes is not utilised. Users are forced to complete unnecessary manual tasks.
  • Control: There is no unified validation system for all passengers. The driver loses control of the group's status.

Areas for improvement:

  • Alignment with actual user behaviour: Eliminate manual tasks at crucial moments at the start and end of the journey.
  • GPS automation: The app automatically recognises when the driver and passenger are together. This reduces manual steps and speeds up verification.
  • Dynamic QR: We improve the validation flow by generating a dynamic QR code for the driver only, eliminating the need for multiple validations per passenger.
  • Semi-automatic verification: With a new QR generation flow, scanning by passengers, and validation, an instantaneous, intuitive, and cognitively unburdensome process is achieved.

UX design process

Ideation

The design of the new validation flow between driver and passengers was developed using a comprehensive UX Research + UX Design approach, combining comparative analysis, ideation, and iterative prototyping. The complete process is detailed below.

With clear insights and objectives, I began a phase of sketching by hand, exploring different interaction variants. The sketches allowed me to:

  • Visualise different validation models:

    • Model A: Driver generates QR code → Passengers scan.

    • Model B: Passengers generate QR code → Driver scans.

    • Model C: Shared short PIN.

    • Model D: Automatic validation by GPS + synchronised button.

  • Evaluate which steps were essential and which could be eliminated.

  • Organise the structure: before the trip, during the meeting, at the end.

  • Consider special cases: multiple passengers, user cannot find the driver, failed validation, etc.

The sketches were created quickly, iterating ideas until a more robust and simple flow was achieved, in which Model A was chosen, complemented by GPS and a final validation method without the need for physical contact.

UI-Ux Desing

Prototaping

After validating the sketches, we moved on to a digital prototype. The process was as follows:

  • Definition of the complete UX flow

  • Start of the journey:

    • Driver and passsengers recibe a prompt from the app when it notice both are together, encouraging them to begin the validation process.

    • The driver displays a dynamic QR code.

    • Each passenger scans it.

    • Immediate validation

  • End of journey:

    • Remote validation by synchronisation (simultaneous button), without the need to be together or scan a code again.

    • System detects match by GPS.

Final model

  • Clickable prototype in Figma

  • The screens were connected to each other to simulate the actual flow.

  • The route was validated to ensure it was smooth, with no redundant steps.

  • The process was tested to ensure it worked the same for passengers and drivers.

  • Animations were simulated to recreate the real environment of the app.

For driver

For passenger

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