Bike Santos: improving the service
of a bike-renting app
🚲

Converting users pain points for usability of the service

Converting users pain points for usability of the service

Wanna jump to the prototypes?

Wanna jump to the prototypes?

Wanna jump to the prototypes?

A little bit of context

Bike Santos is the only bike-renting app in Santos and São Vicente cities, and users can collect and return bicycles at stations. The renting and payment is made in the app and the service is widely used as a locomotion way.

A little bit of context

Bike Santos is the only bike-renting app in Santos and São Vicente cities, and users can collect and return bicycles at stations. The renting and payment is made in the app and the service is widely used as a locomotion way.

The app has more than 100K downloads and a rating of 1.8 stars out of 5 in Google Play and 1.4 stars in App Store.

The app has more than 100K downloads and a rating of 1.8 stars out of 5 in Google Play, and 1.4 stars

in App Store.

Phase 1: Empathizing with users

Pain points, comments and requests from user ratings

To make an analysis and understand better the user's point of views, I collected all the customers comments, with all ratings, at Google Play and App Store from 2020 to 2024.

To make an analysis and understand better the user's point of views, I collected all the customers comments, with all ratings, at Google Play and App Store from 2020 to 2024.

It was a total of 337 comments, and some pain poins were more cited than others by users.

So, I did a chart to have clarity about the heaviness of each theme, to prioritize and fix the most popular ones first

(or, in this case, the most unpopular themes by customers!).

Phase 1: Empathizing with users

Pain points, comments and requests from user ratings

To make an analysis and understand better the user's point of views, I collected all the customers comments, with all ratings, at Google Play and App Store from 2020 to 2024.

It was a total of 337 comments, and some pain poins were more cited than others by users.

So, I did a chart to have clarity about the heaviness of each theme, to prioritize and fix the most popular ones first

(or, in this case, the most unpopular themes by customers!).

🚲

1.Defective bikes
(23.7% of the complaints)

Despite this being a technical business problem, I decided to embrace it as a design one and add in the app some way for users to report the problems they have with their rented bikes.

🚲


1.Defective bikes
(23.7% of the complaints)

Despite this being a technical business problem, I decided to embrace it as a design one and add in the app some way for users to report the problems they have with their rented bikes.


2.Bureaucratic registration
(11.6% of the complaints)

Totally a usability problem. Let's embrace it!


 3.Station did not recognize the return of the bike
(6.6% of the complaints)

Even though this is not an app usability problem, I decided to embrace it to diminish the occurrence of it.

4.Lack of a place to report app errors
(3.9% of the complaints)

A usability problem that I will embrace.

5.Lack of a user support session in the app
(2.2% of the complaints)

A usability problem that I will be happy to fix it.

Phase 2: Defining the scope

Defining what pain points to attack at this time

When I was analyzing the chart and the comments, I could see that some of the pains were beyond the usability of interfaces. So, I directed these other pain points to the company and focused to solve the pains correlated with usability, attacking the ones with the higher number of complaints.

Phase 2: Defining the scope

Defining what pain points to attack at this time

When I was analyzing the chart and the comments, I could see that some of the pains were beyond the usability of interfaces. So, I directed these other pain points to the company and focused to solve the pains correlated with usability, attacking the ones with the higher number of complaints.

Phases 3 and 4: Brainstorm and prototype

Phases 3 and 4:
Brainstorm and prototype

Having the pain points defined, it was time to analyze the actual user flows to make the improvements on them.


Note: all wireframes in this section are only wireframes,

not the final screens! The final ones you can see at the end of this case, ok? :)

Having the pain points defined, it was time to analyze the actual user flows to make the improvements on them.

3.Push in to advise bike was not returned to the station - designing a flow

1- Person receives a push in notification telling the renting time is over and they didn’t receive the bike at the station. “Drop the bike to a station to stop the extra charges.”

4.Designing a flow to report app errors

1 - Report problems

2 - Users can report: bike problems / station problems or app problems

3 - They can describe what problems they have at the app

Talk to us flow

5.User support session - designing a new flow

1 - Talk to us

2 - Users can talk with a chatbot at first sight and then with a person if the problem was not solved. They can choose for one of these pre-determined topics: Bike problems / Station problems /
Pass problems / Payment problems / Report errors / Other themes

3 - Chat with pre-determined options and the option “other”, redirecting to chat with a person.

Talk to us new flow

1.Reporting defective bikes and station problems - designing a flow

Users were also complaining about a lack of a place to report errors in the app, so I added a flow in the menu.

1 - Report problems

2 - Users can report: Bike problems, Station problems or App problems

3 - And here, users can also report other problems that are not listed


Problem reporting flow - bike problems

Problem reporting flow - bike problems

I also added a user flow where users can report problems on their bikes, on the stations or in the app after use the service. They can report problems already listed or enter their own topics on "other", writing with more details what about is their complains.

1, 2 and 3 - Current flow to rent a bike

4 - Person receives a push-in notification telling the app received the bike at the station

5 - Users can rate the bike they rented and also the bike stations they used

6 and 7- Users can go home and a pop-up appears asking if users can also rate the app for the App Store or Google Play


2.Redesigning the bureaucratic registration flow

Users were complaining about the bureaucratic registration flow. After analyzing it I could see that it had unnecessary steps, it was collecting unimportant users data and asking for some permissions without need.


The old registration flow had a total of 15 steps, and I could synthesize it on 7 on the new flow 🎉

Registration flow - old one

1 - Registration - name, birth date, e-mail, cellphone, cpf, password

2 - Notification permission pop up

3 - Notification permission

4 - Location permission

5 - Map to find a bike

6 - Systems asks if the user wants to buy a bike pass

7 - Warning saying that it is fundamental to complete the registration, and that, eventually, they will ask for face recognition in the middle of the registration to evaluate it

8 - Registration video tutorial
9 - Video permission

10 - Selection of documents kind to procedure registration

11- Registration steps

12 - Document picture

13 - Registration steps

14 - Face registration

15 - Documentation sent. The user will be notified when documents are checked


a - Alternative registration pathway for people who don’t have documents

b - User needs to send to the informed e-mail: Record a short video/ Take a picture of any document with photo/ Send an email and inform CPF or cellphone. The registration approval will happen in 24hrs


Registration flow - designing a new one

1, 2 and 3 - Onboarding

4 - Login or registration

5 - Registration screen: name, e-mail, cellphone, password, repeat password, terms of use

6 - Registration confirmation - The user can choose if it wants to receive the confirmation code by e-mail or message text (SMS)

7 - Registration finished! Button where the person goes to map and explore bike stations


2.Redesigning the bureaucratic registration flow

Users were complaining about the bureaucratic registration flow. After analyzing it I could see that it had unnecessary steps, it was collecting unimportant users data and asking for some permissions without need.







The old registration flow had a total of 15 steps, and I could synthesize it on 7 on the new flow 🎉









Registration flow - old one

1 - Registration - name, birth date, e-mail, cellphone, cpf, password

2 - Notification permission pop up

3 - Notification permission

4 - Location permission

5 - Map to find a bike

6 - Systems asks if the user wants to buy a bike pass

7 - Warning saying that it is fundamental to complete the registration, and that, eventually, they will ask for face recognition in the middle of the registration to evaluate it

8 - Registration video tutorial
9 - Video permission

10 - Selection of documents kind to procedure registration

11- Registration steps

12 - Document picture

13 - Registration steps

14 - Face registration

15 - Documentation sent. The user will be notified when documents are checked


a - Alternative registration pathway for people who don’t have documents

b - User needs to send to the informed e-mail: Record a short video/ Take a picture of any document with photo/ Send an email and inform CPF or cellphone. The registration approval will happen in 24hrs


Registration flow - designing a new one

1, 2 and 3 - Onboarding

4 - Login or registration

5 - Registration screen: name, e-mail, cellphone, password, repeat password, terms of use

6 - Registration confirmation - The user can choose if it wants to receive the confirmation code by e-mail or message text (SMS)

7 - Registration finished! Button where the person goes to map and explore bike stations


Phases 5: Test

Lastly, it was time to test with users to see if I solved their problems. I did moderate usability test with 4 Santos residents, and they gave me nice feedbacks about the flow's usability and some refinements to do.

Lastly, it was time to test with users to see if I solved their problems. I did moderate usability test with 4 Santos residents, and they gave me nice feedbacks about the flow's usability and some refinements to do.





Moderate usability test

Usability test notes

So, I did the improvements based on their comments related with the flows I was working on, and the prototype final version you can see below!

Final prototypes

1 and 4.Reporting defective bikes and app errors

2.Registration flow

3.Station did not recognize the return of the bike

3.Station didn't recognize the return of the bike

Person receives a push in notification telling the renting time is over and they didn’t receive the bike at the station. “Drop the bike to a station to stop the extra charges.”

4.User suport session

Constraints I faced and lessons that I learned

As I couldn't have access to the preview Figma files of this project, I needed to create a small design system to use in the screens I was designing, following the patterns already existed in the app screens. It was very useful to have a design system!

It was also a project that I needed to align carefully with the company the registration process to make sure we were not forgetting important information before allow users to take the bikes.

At the end, it was fun and I could act on the main user's pain points!

Thank you! 🙌

©

2025

UXUI Thais Dybax. All Rights Reserved. 🇧🇷

©

2025

UXUI Thais Dybax. All Rights Reserved. 🇧🇷

©

2025

UXUI Thais Dybax. All Rights Reserved. 🇧🇷