[nfbwatlk] Uber app

[Becky Frankeberger]

Uber just streamlined the hell out of its app 

But it also added a lot of clutter

by 

Lauren Goode 

 and 

Andrew J . Hawkins 

 Nov 2, 2016, 12:00pm 

Uber is rolling out a major redesign of its app today - the most significant
update since 2012. The changes, which are only for users and not drivers,
are supposed to offer a much cleaner interface, less confusion around which
service to request, and shortcut options to frequent destinations.

The new app, which The Verge saw during a media briefing and product demo
earlier this week, does appear to be much easier to use. (For instance, even
small details such as the color of a driver's car are now included in the
familiar map interface.) But the redesign also underscores how bloated the
Uber app had gotten in recent years, as the company has swelled in size and
has continually tacked more features and services.

The app relaunch does not appear to address the issues of safety concerns
with Uber's services, nor did the company comment on the topic of racial or
gender discrimination on the driver side. On Monday, researchers from MIT,
Stanford, and University of Washington 

released troubling findings 

 on the reported discrimination that occurs with both the Uber and Lyft
ride-sharing experiences.

The old Uber app made customers choose from a menu of ill-defined options
that changed depending on which city you were in: UberX, Uber Black, Uber
Select, Uber SUV, etc. The new app lumps all those options into three
categories: Economy (which includes UberPool and UberX), Premium (Uber
Select and town cars), Extra Seats (extra-large cars and SUVs), and More
(for those who need a child's car seat or a wheelchair-accessible vehicle).
This is a welcome change from the current interface, which annoyingly
defaults to UberPool much of the time.

Uber is adding arrival times to all its options too. So if you select
Economy, and then UberPool, the app will predict when you're likely to
arrive at your destination - a range for Pool rides, and a more specific
time for solo trips. After inputting your destination, the app tells you how
much your trip will cost before you confirm the request. And 

surge pricing is still all but invisible 

, with just some fine print about "fares being higher than normal" under
your fare quote.

Perhaps more notable is the change to the "Pickup Location" and
"Destination" fields that exist in the current app. Now, when you open the
app, you'll be greeted by a single field that says "Where to?" Yuhki
Yamashita, product manager of the app redesign, said his team "shaved off
every millisecond possible to make it a faster experience."

Thanks to its troves of rider data, Uber is now also showing shortcuts to
favorite destinations, much in the way that most map apps do. To start,
users can add shortcuts for Home and Work, but Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said
it's a "natural next step" for the company to expand its shortcut offerings.
And in the weeks to come, you'll be able to connect Uber with the native
calendar app on your smartphone, which will show up as as destination
shortcuts as it corresponds with your daily schedule.

Uber says it is using machine learning to best predict where you are going
before you even open the app. It's a seemingly small but noteworthy step in
the direction of more automation within Uber's service, as the ride-sharing
company gets deeper into autonomous vehicle technology.

The new Uber app also includes a new feature called Uber feed. This is where
you'll see things like Yelp reviews for the restaurant you're headed to,
UberEats so you can order takeout on your way home, Pandora radio stations,
an Uber Snapchat filter (that's right) that shows your ETA, or a train
station timetable if you're using Uber to connect to public transit. Many of
these features won't be available in the redesigned app until later this
year.

Our take: the new feed is a design decision that adds more clutter just as
Uber has gone to great lengths to streamline it; it is clearly part of a
move to keep people more engaged with Uber as a service that offers more of
an experience than just transportation. Kalanick said Uber is "not in the
advertising business" when asked whether this would be a place for ads to
live, but said there might be special offers for a specific destination
listed in this part of the app.

And finally, Uber is introducing a location-sharing feature that lets
contacts within Uber share their locations with each other, in effect
turning your friend into a "location." This means you can enter Andy or
Lauren as your destination, and provided that they've opted to share it with
you, your driver can take you directly to wherever your contact happens to
be.

Uber says it has been working on the redesign since the beginning of the
year. In February, the company 

rebranded its logo and the overall design language of the app 

. Then in June, Uber rolled out a slew of new features for its drivers 

designed to take some of the edge off of working in the gig economy 

. Today's overhaul represents the conclusion in Uber's makeover trilogy. Now
bring on 

the self-driving cars. 

 


Becky Frankeberger
Butterfly Knitting
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becky at butterflyKnitting.com

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