Bounce is a mobility startup in India that provides scooters (locally called bikes) throughout the operating area of certain cities. Customers can book a scooter near them through the mobile app and drop it at their destination.

To make scooters available to customers at all times, they need to be regularly serviced to either refuel or fix any issues. These Tasks are assigned and communicated to the Ops Executives through a mobile application.

On the supply side (i.e., servicing the scooters), Bounce operates in the form of multiple clusters in the city. These clusters are mutually-exclusive geofences and have been defined for operational efficiency. Ops Executives belong to one of the clusters and only service scooters that are present in it.

To understand the cause of this productivity slump, I interviewed 13 Ops Executives that had high shift-end idle time. Looking at their data prior to the interviews helped me ask personalised questions to get honest answers and the below insights.

1. 12 of 13 executives said that they are conscious about the distance they have to travel for tasks at the end of their shifts. They mentioned that they don't accept tasks as they may land up at places that are farther away from their home.
2. 8 of the 13 executives said they are usually 10+ kms away from their home when their shift ends and that they don't get reimbursed for their journey home as they are not travelling for Tasks.
3. When asked if they would prefer working on tasks that are on their way home, all of the executives responded favourably. However, some of these executives mentioned that the task location could be a concern as they don't usually find tasks on their way home.

These above issues exacerbate with another unrelated project - to merge all the clusters in a city into one. This was owing to the reduced scale at which Bounce was operating during the Covid-19 pandemic. Once it happens, Executives may get tasks anywhere in the city and may end up at locations that are way more farther from their homes.

With these findings, the following objective was derived – This should increase the resource utilisation and thereby the work output. In addition to this, the Executives' concerns would also be alleviated as they will be reimbursed for the fuel they consume while they are travelling for tasks (on their journey home).

Below are some important characteristics that represent our target persona.

• Male
• Is in his 20s-40s
• Qualifications: High school, and in few cases Graduates.
• Comfortable conversing in their native language. Not proficient in English.
• Commonly used apps: Whatsapp, Youtube, Sharechat

Executives should be in control – Since this feature could potentially lead to Executives (voluntarily) working a little longer during their shifts, this flow will be triggered only when they explicitly request it. Hence, at the end of an Executive's shift, these additional Tasks won't get automatically assigned to them.

Since travel distance was identified as a primary concern, the location will be displayed for tasks assigned through this feature while the executive still has the ability to cancel them. Task Location is usually not displayed before accepting a Task to prevent Executives from avoiding specific areas of the city.

To notify the executive of updates when they are on the go, distinct sound notifications will be played depending on the result (viz., a task is assigned, no tasks found on the way).

To get some early validation, the above wireframes were combined into an interactive Figma prototype and tested with 4 participants. They were asked to go through it and explain what they understand from each screen.

Below were the findings and improvements –

1. 2 of the 4 participants couldn't comprehend the feature's title and description on the status change screen. Another participant thought that the illustrative map is an actual map with his current location.
   Since, most of the Executives are not well-versed in reading English, having more copy seems to have confused them. In some cases, participants had completely skipped looking at long copy.
2. 1 of the 4 participants couldn't understand the title and what this screen is meant for. Another participant was confused about what action to take here. This observation has reiterated that less is better for this target persona. This was improved by making the title simpler (Where to?) and keeping the actions limited (Select a destination or Add a new one).
3. 3 of the 4 participants were confused with this screen. One of them thought he is picking a location again and not saving an already picked location. The other 2 didn't understand what the pills are for, while one of them didn't know what "Custom" meant. To make this screen clearer, the map was made to look non-interactive (using a margin) and a label saying "Save as" is added above the pills. In addition to this, "Custom" was renamed to a more common term, "Other".

These visuals designs were evaluated with 5 new participants and improved using the RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing & Evaluation) method. The findings are as follows.

1. 1 of the first 3 participants found the feature's title complicated. Hence, it was changed to a non-generic title "Tasks towards Home" as it is simpler and represents the majority of cases. The next 2 participants were able to easily understand this new title.
2. The first 2 participants didn't construe the map illustration as interactive. Tapping on it would display a modal that shows the Task's location. Adding a label saying "Location" to the illustration helped the next 3 participants tap it.
3. 1 of the 5 participants didn't understand the implications of cancelling the Task (i.e., going offline). To improve this, the 'Cancel Task' action has been renamed to 'Cancel Task & Go Offline'.