On June 11th at beginning at 9:42pm, I observed a user use the Seattle Yellow Cab app to call a cab. Following the ride, the user reflected on his statement.
Observations:
When you try to enter an address, it prompts you to create a profile or do it later. If you select “do it later”, it takes you to the home screen and the cycle repeats.
After selecting the destination address from a drop down, the app had a pop up saying “Please select valid address from list or map!” This may have been for the pickup address which initially didn’t seem necessary. User started over.
After booking “confirmed” it didn’t do anything and user went to GPS tap, where it showed our location and any cabs in the area. Unsure if cab was coming, user went through the booking process again.
Booking showed “searching” for several minutes. User went back to GPS (map). Map wouldn’t load until he zoomed out and in.
Clicking “Cab Hailer” brought up a page which said a number will be shown when a cab is assigned to him.
At 9:52 (after 10 full minutes), with no indication from the app that his booking had worked, the user cancelled it. He started again, Starting from GPS (the map), which brought up exactly the same screens as before (including pickup address input)
9:55, dispatched cab number and name appears at the top of the map. “Cab Hailer” still didn’t show a dispatched cab.
User clicks “pending bookings” several times, looking for more info, relation to the cab assigned to the booking, but the screen only has assigned cab number, barely noticeable in the middle of text block. He doesn’t seem to notice, and reloads it several times.
User clicks “Track” from right sidebar, app does nothing.
User clicks “More Info”, app does nothing.
App begins not responding to clicks, highlighting random areas of the screen.
After trying to select other menu options, menu disappears, leaving mostly blank screen.
Confused, user tries to click “Enter Address” looking for any information about where the cab is, app does not respond.
Clicks GPS and map appears, but laid over the right side menu, still partially visible on the top of the map. For the first time, cabs show up. None marked as his assigned cab.
Map appears as though nothing has been booked. Bottom of screen says “Searching for available cabs” and “pick me up here”
One cab icon briefly shows yellow instead of gray, goes away after a moment. What did it mean?
One gray cab icon looks sort of nearby, but disappears. Was it his cab approaching?
We get picked up at 10:01, 19 minutes after starting, by the assigned cab despite one never showing its approach on the map. Map shows our “hailing” icon moving up the hill as we are driven.
User thoughts: Overall, the app was clunky to use. It wasn’t clear what the options meant. The first way the user went through it, he didn’t feel like it was quite the right way, so he started over. User thought he might have messed up and double booked. “Overall, it made me feel stupid, and made me doubt that I was ever going to get a cab, and, uh, and made me not really want to take cabs using the app anymore.”