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How would you restructure the taxi booking menu screen below?

It seems a bit painful expecting the user to bounce forward/back each time they need to enter or change something?

How can I improve this to make it more effective?

I think the blank space on the Pick Up, Drop Off and When screens is a waste, but I can't think of anything to fill it up with. So it must make it redundant. Right?

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  • Which platform are you designing this for - web, android, iOS?
    – micap
    Jan 19, 2014 at 12:21
  • Step 1) Talk to your users. Step 2) Refine.
    – erik_lev
    Jan 20, 2014 at 1:38
  • @methuselah On a side-note, did you use a website to generate these wireframes/rough designs or were they done manually? I really like them 8-)
    – jskidd3
    Jan 20, 2014 at 9:01

3 Answers 3

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5

Your interaction looks "jumpy", as user should go forth and back to set parameters. This style doesn't provide smooth flow.
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Changing the interaction to support the flow could bring better experience. It looks like Wizard pattern.
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This interaction allows:

  • to involve user in the task in more fast way
  • to reduce visual complexity of the booking task by breaking it on a sub-tasks
  • to eliminate the problem of blank screen, as final screen is filled with previously chosen options

To be more flexible, allow user change the settings in the final (booking) screen.

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4
  • How would this impact the UI? Would it be broken down into several "steps"?
    – methuselah
    Jan 19, 2014 at 13:14
  • @methuselah sorry if it was not clear. Each point on the diagram is a screen. Though Options screen with default values could be combined with the Book screen.
    – Alexey Kolchenko
    Jan 19, 2014 at 13:26
  • Thanks - what benefit does this have over having all the information on one page as an accordion?
    – methuselah
    Jan 19, 2014 at 13:50
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    Accordion pattern doesn't assume mandatory performing each step, so user could make an casual error of missing a step (such errors are called slip). Also accordion elements take screen space, leaving less space for heavy manipulation tasks (like map navigating). And they could distract user from the current task, too. Note, every important interaction takes separate screen in your current design!
    – Alexey Kolchenko
    Jan 19, 2014 at 14:19
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Yes, you can transform your multi-screen layout to simple accordion, like (hope this scheme is understandable):

Accordion

It's more simple for programmers too. And possible to auto roll next tab, when something selected.

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2

One simple way to avoid the bounce forward/back UX problem would be to set the main fields with a default value.

ie:

  • [Pick up] would default to "Current Location",
  • [When] would default to "Now",
  • [Available Seats] defaults to "1".

Now our user only has to fill up one piece of data (Drop Off) which could either be taken out all together (if business flow allows) or moved as the only screen prior to making a booking.

Note that this should be validated by either looking at existing booking data (to find out what the most popular values are) and/or talking to users (as @usingtheinternet mentioned).

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