Why?

As a college student, I have found that trips between University and the airport are very expensive, especially during breaks. From my own personal experience traveling between Vanderbilt and Nashville International Airport, Ubers often cost between $40-$60.

Universities in more urban areas may be even more expensive, with trips between the airports in California and UC Berkeley costing up to $80.

Solutions

Carpooling

Difficult to find others planning to leave at the same time as you
Those you find may not be someone you enjoy sharing a ride with
May not receive money from everyone for splitting transportation funds

Due to all of the complications with these issues, many students may decide to just ride themselves despite the expensive ride-sharing process.

How can we simplify this process for college students?

Features

Connect with others who attend your University

Split the bill equally before confirming your ride

Design Process

Market Research

Only carpooling app targeting college students
Not in competition with ride-share apps, more of an extension to assists in the carpooling process
Other carpooling apps are designed for adults who plan to drive somewhere in their own car and pick up others who are willing to pay
- Ex. inDrive and BlaBlaCar
Popular ride-sharing apps don’t encourage carpooling, but instead have a separate inconvenient option for carpooling. You also don’t get an option to choose who you go with
- Ex. Group rides in Lyft and Uber Share
Uber share reduces price, but does not split the price evenly, an example of when I used Uber share, the price of my trip was reduced from $7.57 to $5.81

Wireframing

What

IOS + Android App

Ride with people you enjoy to be around

Stay connected to friends and classmates

Why

Personal Passion Project

Shuttle Bus

Not enough seats and buses, especially for larger universities
Large time increments between rides if you miss a departure
Inconvenient departure times for many students

Find people on your flight, or arriving at the same time

Compare your flight schedule with your friends

This is the original wireframe for my app design, covering all of the issues listed above with written notes to describe the key roles of each feature and any miscellaneous information.

One of the main themes I tried to design the app around was the usability and familiarity of each function. To accomplish this, I implemented common layouts that are often seen in social media apps that are popular within college students, such as Instagram and TikTok.

Color Themes + Logo

After deciding the app’s features and overall design, I decided to choose a color scheme consisting of light green, white, grey, and black. I used one main color, surrounded by several neutral colors to give the app its own recognizable theme. Although simple, I chose a neutral light green color due to its correlation with currency and its uncommon nature in app design. Its neutral hue is also easy to look at, and due to its uncommon color, it is easily connected to the CarPoole app.

For the same reason of correlation, I decided to name the app CarPoole. Taking into account college students and Generation Z’s habit to abbreviate words to make them catchier (ex. Insta), I decided to nickname the app Poole and turned the P into the logo. In the logo itself, I decided to split it into several parts to represent the split payment system.