Commuter — retracing rideshare back to ride-sharing.

A concept study, openly unshipped: what would ridesharing look like if it went back to actually sharing rides — neighbors, shared costs, shared direction — and what trust systems would strangers need to get in the same car?

How might we lower the emotional and coordination barriers that prevent daily commuters from sharing rides?
The final problem statement — where the process landed

Uber began as ridesharing and became a taxi service — a platform for professional drivers to earn, not for neighbors to share. The original idea got lost: people from the same area, heading the same direction, splitting the cost of one car. This study retraces that path — and the interesting part isn't the screens, it's the process that got there.

Research → a reframe

Secondary research said the problem was logistics: occupancy, congestion, cost. User interviews said otherwise — commuters fear loss of control, value autonomy and decompression time, and resist schedule rigidity. The project's pivotal moment was the reframe: from logistics to human behavior.

Research synthesis — people resist ride sharing due to perceived loss of control, schedule uncertainty, and emotional attachment to their commute — Research synthesis — the human insight

Reframing the problem: from logistics to human behavior — the strategic shift — The reframe — from logistics to human behavior

Understanding the commuter

Affinity map of research themes: schedule anxiety, autonomy, trust and safety barriers, friction accumulation, money, social comfort — Affinity map — six themes from interviews

Empathy map — the daily commuter: reliability first, protective and guarded, open but cautious, precise and solo — Empathy map — the daily commuter

Two personas: the Routine Protector and the Efficiency Seeker — Personas — the Routine Protector · the Efficiency Seeker

User journey map — from solo driver to shared commuter — Journey — from solo driver to shared commuter

Ideate → prototype

Six named concepts diverged from the reframe — Pulse, Hush, Circle, Drift, FastLane, Ripple — each answering the control-and-trust problem differently. Ripple, the route-based option with bus-stop-style pickups and cost-sharing, was carried to an MVP prototype.

Six product concepts from the ideation phase — Ideation — six divergent concepts

The Ripple MVP prototype — building to learn — Prototype — Ripple MVP, building to learn

Why it lives here, not with the case studies

This project came out of a double-diamond process workshop, as an early experiment in AI-assisted design workflow — much of its process material was AI-generated under my direction. It's kept as honest process history: the experiment that taught me where AI belongs in my workflow (executing a system I direct) and where it doesn't (doing the thinking for me).

Figma AI-assisted process Product strategy